The Boat in the Evening (20 page)

Could there have been an accident? A serious accident? And we have no telephone. The thought of an accident gives him the excuse to creep in to her.

She starts up, book in hand.

‘Oh, it's you! What do you want?'

‘Could something have happened?' he stammers.

‘No, of course not. They're enjoying themselves, I expect, and time passes as usual.'

‘Why don't you go to bed too, Mother?'

‘Yes, I think I will after all. I can't sit up any longer.'

She looks drained and thoroughly exhausted. His old thoughts return.

‘Shall I go out and look?' he asks.

‘What good will that do? Nothing will have happened near here.'

She must have noticed that it sounded a little odd, and smooths it over with a yes, yes, of course something could happen right outside.

At that moment the sound of cartwheels is heard. They both start in surprise. She says hastily, ‘Go back to your room. Can't you do as I ask? He's not to see that you're sitting up too, waiting for him like this. He wouldn't put up with it. That's why, don't you see?'

Of course. He seems to understand. He must remember that she has brought him into the world. Borne him and reared him. He is back in bed in a couple of strides. He is not going to witness any sort of humiliation of either of them. He can see that she is extremely frightened.

He does not snuggle down in bed and draw the blanket up round his ears. Far from it. He has to listen in case he hears anything that might throw light into the darkness, although he is afraid of what it might be.

Now he can hear the wheels crunching in the gravel out in the yard. They stop.

Oh, how he feels for her! He buries himself at the bottom of the bed.

No, he must listen.

He hears her go out of the living-room to meet her husband. The yard is black as pitch, no use peeping through the window. But he dare not get dressed and go out into the darkness. They might catch sight of him, and she did ask him to go away.

He hears their voices out there, alternating in ordinary conversation. Is the newcomer raising his voice too much? Don't know.

He is secretly listening for the sound of weeping. That did happen once. Only once, but that was enough; it sticks in the memory as if nailed there.

He can hear nothing of the sort now. She must have been worrying needlessly?

The horse has to be looked after. They are gone from the yard for a long while. What are they doing all this time? No, it isn't a long time really.

But then he hears them. They are coming from the stable towards the house. They are talking eagerly. Both of them raising their voices. Both of them happy and lighthearted.

Light-hearted?

Yes. No reluctant words can be distinguished. No, no. Enthusiastic talk, nothing more. Strong and clear, that draws you into it. He is telling her something, and the words pour out, and she is drawn into it. You can hear her laughter, as if she herself were on the Khirgiz steppes tonight, on a flying horse.

16

The Rivers beneath the Earth

Night as well as day.

One is in one's secret chamber, feeling this: Is not the ground quivering beneath my feet, because of the hidden waters?

And what should one do then? I wonder.

One must be present.

One must come forward and stand in the current flowing from them. One must let the faint quivering jolt one. As decaying bridges and old duckboards quiver slightly in the time of the thaw.

*

Or in the distant time of youth, when the quivering was within oneself in the form of endless questioning. When one was so terrified oneself of being questioned.

Do I understand more now?

No. But I quiver less.

One is just as wordless in the face of the great riddles, and one still hopes one will not be asked.

But at least to have a place where there is no need to hide, where one simply says: I can hear. I exist, and I can hear the current flowing.

One can be deluded into saying: I exist for the sake of the rivers beneath the earth.

To listen and understand.

Not to understand, but to be close to where it is happening.

Not to try to understand the enormous network beneath the earth. Where lakes multiply into countless sources, which again multiply into countless sources and finally into unimaginably small sources. Source upon source—while the thirsty stand thirsty behind the thirsty.

When one has understood this, and yet not understood, what is one to do?

The current never stops. As a great pulse never stops.

*

It will always be night. It does not make so much difference any more. One hears, all through the night. The alien pulse is labouring close by.

Afraid? No. A little numbed, yet uplifted.

Since it is close by, one understands that the walls have no significance. Numbed and uplifted one cannot help but notice how the pulse beats closer when it is night and the walls are gone.

The swift current is about to return. One meets it flowing back.

How is that?

The pulse in the night may chase sleep away, but the memories are not lost or destroyed. One listens for what one does not understand, as always.

*

That's what the night is for. Different, but not hostile. The currents go cascading back.

What of it?

All's well.

The night opens its clear vault, and one's eyes open theirs. In the night all eyes are large and wide open, dark to the very edge.

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Translated from the Norwegian
Baaten om kvelden

First British Commonwealth edition 1971
© Gyldendal Norsk Forlag NS 1968
English translation © Peter Owen and
Elizabeth Rokkan 1971
This ebook edition 2014

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