Somewhere Over the Sea (7 page)

— Hey, Karin?

— Yes, Gabriel?

— It's been such as long time now since your husband died that I think it's time for us to find you a new one.

You meant well; Karin who knows you understood that. But you don't understand, have no possibility of understanding that when one means well one can also do damage, as when you pick an itching scab off a wound that should be allowed to heal undisturbed. For people who don't know you it isn't easy to deal with a little boy who approaches in the street and asks, with genuine concern in his eyes:

— You're so fat, why don't you eat less?

You feel sorry for others and would like to help and comfort them — this is something you often express. You mean what you say and I don't doubt that. But I am not sure why you mean it. Is it because you've learned that what one should do to be kind and nice is to help and show consideration, to be generous and comforting? Or does it come from an unselfish impulse in you, an altruistic need to offer support? I don't know, and I probably never will know, and perhaps the questions are academic, irrelevant to the practicalities of our everyday life.

One day when we had been discussing your problems you fell silent for a moment before saying:

— Well at least I know what your problem is!

— Oh yes? And what's that?

— You can't eat apples and pears and nuts and stuff. That's your problem.

It was, as far as it went, true. I do have an allergy, but it was a pretty unusual comparison to draw.

Half an hour later at the dinner table you returned to the subject:

— Hey, Dad, if I save until my piggy bank is full, d'you think I'll be able to afford to buy some pills for you so that you can eat apples and pears and nuts and stuff? If there are such pills, that is?

You'd forgotten the original purpose of your savings — to buy the biggest diamond in the worLD.

BUT DO YOU
KNOW WHAT
regret is? Oh yes, when things disappear and you lose them, or when you break them and lose them in that way, you can feel regret. But your regret is always turned against circumstances, never something you yourself have done, and could have left undone. You have never broken a cup in a regrettable moment of inattention, nor ever taken your eye off a lost copper coin. The cup was wet and it slipped, or somebody slammed a door and gave you a start. The coin was so little and the house so big, and you had other things to do than to look for it, and it's easy for the adults to say, but children aren't good at remembering where they put things. In this way you channel your regret outside yourself and direct it at a world that never takes enough responsibility and is always open to blame.

— It's your fault, you say to time and the wind, and don't ask for a reply, don't need a reply.

The only exception is in relation to your problems, which you don't understand and therefore fear might be your own responsibility — at least if I'm to go by the seriousness in your voice on those occasions when you ask if they are your fault. All I can do then is repeat, Gabriel, that you're completely innocent. Your problems are no more your own fault than are your fair curls or your strong muscles. You are born with them, created that way by nature.

It often doesn't take more than that to placate you. As long as someone other than yourself is to blame — be it nature herself — then you can quietly put your worries behind you and carry on. You have weighed an opportunity to feel regret and guilt, and found it wanting.

I envy you this ability. Personally, I regret far too much.

On the other hand you largely lack the ability to generalize, to transfer experience and learning from one situation to another. Or more accurately: it is difficult for you to adapt to new situations the way the rest of us do, by using experiences from similar, but not identical, situations. Whereas life for us might be described as a succession of consecutive but discrete events, each one calling for a uniquely crafted response and a carefully adapted type of behaviour, you tend to approach most situations with a kind of standard behaviour. Your instinctive understanding of situations is underdeveloped, and you therefore make use of a narrow range of fairly crude patterns of response. It is as though you decide at once, when confronted by a situation, whether it calls for irritation, for example, or anticipation, joy, anger, or sympathy. And once the decision is made, you respond with an appropriate, standardized behaviour. If you find reason to feel annoyed, you will feel it as much, and in the same way, whether the provocation is small and unimportant, or large and serious. If it seems to you that ­sympathy is called for, then you are as effusive, whether it be to comfort a member of the family or a stranger in the street who seems unhappy to you.

To put it in another way, you lack a sense of proportion. You don't dose the intensity of your behaviour and your feelings to accord with the individual situation, no more than you, for example, pitch the level of your voice to take into account how far away the person you're talking to happens to be. Sitting just half a metre away from me at the dinner table, you might address me with a volume that would be more appropriate if I were at the far end of the house. It is not because you lack the ability to distinguish between loud and quiet speech, but — as is so often the case — because you almost exclusively use your own criteria as the basis for your behaviour. Since you do not understand, or are unable to empathize with other people's unspoken premises, motivations, and desires in a given situation, you ignore them and act as though your own premises, motivations, and desires are the only valid ones. So you raise your voice — not because it is necessary for me to hear you, but because you believe you have something important to say and that other voices therefore must either give way to yours or be drowned out, regardless of whether what they might have to say might also be important. Only if I expressly state that now you must listen, now I have something important to tell you, do you fall silent and listen. But on your own you are unable to “read” the situation, and gather from the expression on my face, the impatience in my voice and the raised eyebrows, or from all the countless hints that populate a social situation, that now it is someone else's turn to speak.

Of
all
the
many
problems
you
have
to
face,
my
son,
this
is
perhaps
your
greatest
handicap.
For
even
if
in
some
given
circumstance
I
explain
to
you
that
here
you
must
show
consideration
for
others,
that
social
insight
has
disappeared
by
the
time
the
next
situation
arises.
That
which
you
learned
a
moment
ago
has
no
transferable
validity
for
a
succeeding
situation.
Only
if
an
identical
situation
arises
are
you
able
to
use
what
you
have
learned.
In
a
sense,
you
are
a
kind
of
social
fundamentalist:
each
social
occasion
has,
for
you,
its
own
absolute
value
and
exclusive
status,
which
make
experiences
gleaned
from
it
unusable
in
the
next.
Whereas
life
for
the
rest
of
us
is
a
steady
stream
of
occasions
that
interlock
with
one
another
and
allow
us
to
accumulate
appropriate
patterns
of
behaviour,
it
seems
to
me
that
for
you
it
consists
rather
of
a
series
of
discrete
situations
that
must
be
approached
individually,
one
after
the
other,
and
each
time
as
though
for
the
first
time.
I
can
only
imagine
how
tiring
and
frustrating
it
must
be,
and
how
tempting
it
must
seem
to
you
to
be
spared
the
involvement
and
the
empathizing
with
what
others
think
and
feel.

Like that time when a scene at home ended with Mom smashing a pan of mashed potatoes down on the oven so hard that the whole ceramic surface cracked. After observing the performance in silence you made your only comment:

— Next time you buy powdered mash, Dad, buy two packets in case Mom gets angry.

BY LATE AFTERNOON,
sated with sun and grilled food, we were ready to head for home. Mom had climbed up a rise to have a look around and see where you were, and called me to join her. Somewhere behind our house a thick grey bank of fog swayed, in complete isolation. It couldn't be possible.

But it was. When we got home we saw that the fire engines and the police were back, and the spectators in their places. A small, overlooked cinder somewhere up under the roof, and the draft from a broken window, had been enough. Seeming this time playful and teasing, the flames licked again across the walls as embarrassed firemen hosed and chopped away at the charred timbers.

WE LOSE WHAT
WE MUST LOSE
, Gabriel — because time is finished with it, because time is up, because nothing lasts after it is over. Not houses, not friends nor people, not even old trees last any longer than they should, than their allotted span of time. Sometimes I miss you already. I miss your time, the one that is gone and lives on in memory, and the one to come, the one that is anticipation, the one you shall fill with your own losses when you yourself have lost and have been lost.

We are only unlosable to ourselves, my son. Everything else loses us.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
sit here and look at my hand, Gabriel, at all that is written down there. Most of it is illegible. It is scribbled in haste, in languages I don't understand, a line here, a scar there, a mark and a hollow. Some people would have us believe that hands are ready-written books we are born with, two volumes in which our lives are chronicled in creases and wrinkles even before we have lived, reference books that we can consult to learn who we are and that can tell us what will become of us. But it isn't so. Our hand-books are written by ourselves, or life writes them for us day by day, so that nothing shall be forgotten, so that each blow and each caress shall be retained and remembered. Just as the sole of your foot carries on it the impress of every grain of sand and soft carpet it has walked on, every door it has kicked in, so is carved into your hands the stem of every flower, every coin, and every bar you have grasped.

That is why it's so good to hold someone else by the hand, for then two stories talk to each other. Like when we're driving the car, me in front and you in the back, and one of us suddenly just has to hold out his hand and take the other's for a moment, and a transmission takes place of something we never speak of, but which is good and great and strong. In the library of the body only the eyes process more information on our lived lives than the hands, but they cannot be read, as the hands can. If God exists when we die, I imagine that it is our hands he will ask to see. Then he will smile or grieve, for the hand-writing cannot be rubbed out, it is the journal we keep throughout our life, and we shall be judged upon it.

I sit here and look at my hand, and it is like a treasure map. Had I been able to decipher all the signs and read them in the right order, I might have uncovered my whole history. But that I cannot do, that would be like living life over again. We never quite manage to find ourselves, Gabriel; it is a futile and fruitless search.

We can, however, be found, and we can ourselves find others. That is the real miracle of the hands — that they let us receive and that they let us give. All the rest is finally just reading matter to pass the time.

Now I offer you my hand in support. With the other I hold on to the rusting chain that stops the boat from drifting so far away from land that it would make your clambering jump up onto the pier too long and too difficult. And then it's your turn to hold, hold on tightly to the rope as I lift the chest from the bottom of the boat, from the depths of this unreasonably low tide, raise it up above my head like a sacrificial offering and shove it carefully onto the edge of the pier. Finally I follow up with the rest of the equipment.

We're on Treasure Island. It has another name, but we don't use that now. Places have many names; they're called houses, fortresses, castles, or palaces, all according to time and usage. Today this place is called Treasure Island, for today we're off on a treasure hunt, so it can't have the same name as when we're only going for a walk, or to visit Jon Ivar in the lighthouse. Names are important. Without them we don't know where we are or what we're doing there. Without names we wouldn't even have treasures to talk about, only rocks and metal. Names make things genuine and valuable, and false treasures are worthless, they're not worth collecting. No one knows that better than you.

Gradually we have developed a certain routine. We know what we're searching for, and where it's most likely to be found. Before, you remember, when we were beginners, we dug our spades into any old patch of ground, chipped away at random rock faces, and dived down aimlessly to arbitrary seabeds. It wasn't always easy to hide the disappointment when we did not immediately come across buried chests, when diamonds and nuggets of gold did not fall away of their own accord from the rock, when schooners laden with precious loot didn't appear to us among the forest of kelp. You thought it was unjust and unfair, and that we had better move to Africa or America, since it was obvious others had been here before us and found whatever was to be found. When I objected that this might possibly present difficulties, you thought me stupid and frivolous, and that I didn't understand much about what was really important.

After numerous unsuccessful expeditions we gradually came to an agreement that the important thing was to find. How what we found happened to be located just where we had chosen to look was a matter of secondary importance and something we could safely disregard. It was none of our concern whether it had been left behind by pirates of old, or overlooked by earlier gold diggers, or even put there so that it could be found later. All that mattered was our finding it.

And we certainly did begin to find, one gem after the other. Opals and lapis lazuli, which are normally found only in Bolivia or Afghanistan, miraculously cropped up in a corner of the garden, and crystals and copper coins glinted in the sunlight between the rocks on the shore. Now we were able to make reliable treasure maps, certain in our knowledge that beneath the sign of the crossed bones at the end of the track, there would lie an amethyst or two.

On your own account you experimented with a variation that didn't prove quite as successful, because it isn't always easy to tell the difference between a smart game and being simply outsmarted. You realized that after you had been out on one of your expeditions and found the skeleton of a sheep's head. You pulled out the teeth, placed them in a glass of water on the bedside table, and then were mightily irritated to discover next morning that nothing had happened. The teeth had not turned into money. Not until you were given a thorough explanation of the fact that the tooth fairy probably can't be fooled, and is well able to tell the difference between human teeth and sheep's teeth, did you accept the fact that this was not a shortcut to riches.

TODAY WE'RE NOT
SURE
what we might find. Perhaps we won't find anything at all, perhaps rascals and bandits have been here before us and run off with everything of value. We mention this possibility to each other, this outrage that in no way seems unthinkable to us. We dwell on it in silent unease as we make our way across the uneven island terrain, carrying your heavy treasure chest between us. It would be almost too good to be true if other treasure hunters hadn't discovered the grotto we're on our way to explore, which previous visits have shown to contain so many wondrous things. But we don't talk out loud about such things, because you never know — hidden behind every rock may be a wrongdoer with cutlass and musket at the ready, eavesdropping and spying on us. We don't breathe a word about
our real destination, but drop loud and misleading hints about a
notorious treasure-free cave on the other side of the island as we glance about on all sides in search of telltale signs of fiendish charlatans and unspeakable buccaneers.

On the slope below the lighthouse we decide to take a break — not only because waffles and cocoa would taste good, but also because our pursuers then will think we're just taking an ordinary walk, and go back home in frustrated resignation. The treasure, which has already been awaiting us since time immemorial, can wait a few more minutes. But not too many! Though you have never admitted to having butterflies in your stomach — the thought repels you, those poor butterflies — it's easy to see that your whole body is tingling with excitement and anticipation. Before I'm halfway through my drink, you just have to go on ahead.

I remain behind, sitting on a rock. I light a cigarette, and before I've smoked it you're back gasping for breath, disturbed, your gaze flickering about. It was too dark, it was too scary, you don't dare on your own. Because it might be that not all the villains have gone home, perhaps some are still waiting in there where you can't see them, hatching the most sinister and wicked plans to trick you into telling them where the treasure is.

AT PLAY YOU
ARE
a master in conjuring forth fear, you who in everyday life know no fear. Even the police have experienced this. One day, when Mom's car broke down on the way home from work, and she knew that the taxi was due to drop you off at home any minute, she was driven there at top speed by a friendly patrol-car officer. But it was too late; you had already come home from school and found the house empty. When you then heard Balder begin to bark at the sound of an unknown car approaching, you resolutely made your way down into the library and pulled a heavy Mexican machete out of its sheath, even though you weren't allowed to: this was an emergency, the house had to be protected, and you had to protect yourself against unknown intruders. The policeman who was with Mom was met in the doorway by a fearless youngster with a jungle sword raised high over his head, ready to strike, and had to back away in alarm . . . An imaginary peril, on the other hand, of an encounter with wily villains in a treasure grotto, you daren't face that without someone to cover your back.

To be afraid is not to know. Sometimes I think the only thing you really fear is yourself, about whom you know the least. Is that why you sometimes ask, cautiously as always when you want to talk about your problems:

— Are they dangerous?

No, Gabriel. Your problems are not dangerous, at least not in the same way as, for example, cancer or a heart attack, illnesses you can die of. Nor are they dangerous in the sense that they can cause you physical pain, like a wound. And they are definitely not dangerous to others — you cannot “infect” other people.

The only time your problems can be dangerous is when no proper account is taken of them. A person who feels himself systematically misunderstood, ignored, and ridiculed, and who doesn't understand why, nor is given any help to understand why, can with time develop a strong strain of aggression that affects other people. On the other hand, there is nothing at all to suggest that you have a greater likelihood than others of turning to violence. Rather the opposite: when you're driven into a rage, into shouting and punching and screaming, I can see by the tears you don't even try to hide that it is as much yourself you are punishing as us. But I don't know why.

OUR TREASURE GROTTO
was hollowed out and lined with reinforced concrete by German soldiers during the Second World War. It lies facing the shipping lane; the Germans needed the position to attack and then to protect the approach to the town. They did a thorough, Germanic job and left behind a construction that is virtually inviolable from sea and invisible from land, and on which neither wind nor water have managed to scratch their traces in fifty years. Today it is used — at least we hope and believe so — only by us, when we are out on a treasure hunt.

You lead the way. That is to say, you walk behind and give me precise instructions, for as any experienced expedition leader knows, it is tactically important to have an advance guard. The entrance to the grotto lies hidden under a jutting outcrop of rock, and it is dark even before we have set foot inside. But we are well prepared. By the glow of a lighter I find the tallow candles that we have placed around the floor on previous visits and light them, and I am soon able to confirm that the grotto is suitably illuminated and free from villains. I walk out to you. You stand with one foot on top of your chest, as though on a lion you have just bagged, and listen as I make my report. Then in we go. This time you walk in front.

Deep inside the grotto a loose rock leans from the wall. You ease it out by the flickering light, which imparts an eerie life to our shadows, but you pay them no mind. Then you stick your hand inside and presently your whole arm. You don't spend a second worrying about scorpions and snakes, and . . .

— Yes, I know, Gabriel, spending is something you do with money, but believe me, you can also spend time.

. . . and with a face that lights up in surprise and joy, outshining the flames, you pull out a fist full of pearls and gold chains and coins and coloured gemstones.

— Look what I found, Dad! Isn't it fantastic?

And then at once an afterthought that you need to have clarified:

— Do you think they're genuine?

WHAT IS A
GENUINE TREASURE?

I could begin by throwing a question back at you:

— What does it mean, genuine?

You would simply tell me to stop asking stupid questions:

— Everybody knows what genuine means! It means things that aren't fake, things are real. Diamonds, for example.

And yet I might insist:

— Yes, but pine cones and mussels are real. Does that mean they're genuine?

You would immediately dismiss this:

—But they aren't rare!

— Maybe not — but what if in the whole world there was only one pine cone?

You would have to think about that for a few moments, and reply with a question of your own:

— Would that make it valuable?

— Yes, because if enough people wanted a pine cone, and in the whole wide world there was only one, then it would be very valuable.

You'd think a good deal more before trumping me:

— No, because genuine treasures actually exist, and only one pine cone doesn't, and so it can't be genuine!

WHAT IS A
GENUINE TREASURE?

You have several criteria, but what is common to most of what you call genuine is that it must be created in and by nature, not by people. Among metals, you dismiss steel and brass. The main metals should also — if they are to be approved by you — have a carat stamp, or demonstrably be so old that age makes them rare and therefore valuable. In questions of valuation you adhere uncompromisingly to the gold standard — a treasure that cannot in principle be exchanged for gold does not deserve to be called a treasure. You give plated and gilded objects the benefit of the doubt, if they look good, but not if they show any signs of verdigris or rust.

Precious stones must above all be precious. However, here we are in murky waters, for apart from the obvious ones — diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoises, and sapphires — there are many types of stones that can seem precious without definitely being so. Agate, opal, amber, amethyst, tiger's eyes, rodomite, obsidian, jade . . . who could say with certainty if they are all precious and therefore genuine and valuable and rare? On this score you lack an authoritative reference book. Crystals are an especially tricky case, and you can never quite get to the bottom of it. Rock crystals are genuine, as is pink quartz from Argentina, but on the other hand you've learned that crystals are the building blocks in everything from salt to snowflakes, and it confuses you, for that has nothing to do with treasures. Crystal balls, on the other hand, and a crystal glass that rings against a damp finger drawn round the rim are genuine, even though they are not found in nature. They are at least valuable. Porcelain too, if it is thin enough. And fossils and corals, for they are millions of years old and so must be valuable.