The Birds (2 page)

“I can’t see anyone,” he said.

“Oh.”

“You are strange,” he said. “If I saw something every time I looked around—what would it be like here? The whole place would be crowded.”

Hege just nodded. She had somehow brought him back and could go on working. She never sat idle on the steps like Mattis, her hands were busy knitting, as they had to be.

Mattis looked at her work with respect, this was what put food on their table. He himself earned nothing. Nobody wanted him. They called him Simple Simon and laughed whenever his name was mentioned in connection with work. The two things just didn’t go together. There were probably dozens of stories going around among their busy neighbors in the village about what happened when Simple Simon tried to work. Everything always went wrong.

You’re my beak against rock, he suddenly thought as he sat there—and gave a start.

What?

But it was gone.

The image and the words shot through him. And were gone again just as quickly – instead he seemed to be staring at a blank wall. He flung a quick glance at his sister but she hadn’t noticed anything. She sat there small and neat, but no girl anymore, she was forty years old.

Suppose he mentioned things like that to her? Beak against – she wouldn’t understand.

Hege was sitting close to him, so he had a good view of her straight, dark brown hair. Suddenly he noticed a gray hair here and there among the brown ones. Long silvery threads.

Have I the eyes of a hawk today? he thought in a flash of happy wonder, I’ve never noticed this before. Impulsively he exclaimed: “But Hege!”

She looked up quickly, reassured by the tone of his voice. Ready to join in: “What is it?”

“You’re starting to go gray!”

She bent her head.

“Am I?”

“Very gray,” he said. “I’ve never noticed it until today. Did you know about it?”

There was no reply.

“It’s pretty early,” he said. “After all, you’re only forty, and so gray.”

Suddenly he felt something gazing at him from somewhere. Not Hege. From somewhere. A cutting gaze. Perhaps it was coming from Hege after all. He felt frightened and realized he had done something wrong, yet without really being aware of it; after all he had only been sharp-eyed.

“Hege.”

At last she looked up.

“What’s wrong now?”

No, what he wanted to say had gone. No more gazes either.

“It’s nothing really,” he said. “Just get on with your knitting.”

She smiled and said: “Alright then, Mattis.”

“Okay, and you don’t mind, do you?” he said gently. “My talking about your gray hair?”

She just tossed her hair as if in a kind of half-playful obstinacy: “Not really. I knew about it already.”

Her flashing knitting needles had been busy the whole time. They seemed to work automatically all day long.

“Yes, you’re sharp-witted, you really are,” he said, to make up for what he shouldn’t have said.

This gave him another opportunity to use one of those words that hung before him, shining and alluring. Far away in the distance there were more of them, dangerously sharp. Words that were not for him, but which he used all the same on the sly, and which had an exciting flavor and gave him a tingling feeling in the head. They were a little dangerous, all of them.

“Do you hear, Hege?”

She sighed: “Yes.”

Nothing more. Oh well, that was who she was. Perhaps he praised her too much?

“But really, it’s too early to be going gray,” he mumbled softly so she didn’t hear it. What about me, I wonder? I must have a look before I forget.

“Are you going to bed, Mattis?”

“No, I’m just—” going to take a look in the mirror, he nearly blurted out, but stopped himself and went inside.

IT WAS ONLY as Mattis entered the house he noticed what a lovely evening it was. The big lake was as calm as a mill pond. Beyond it, the ridges to the west were covered in haze – they usually were. There was a smell of early summer. On the road, which was hidden behind the trees, the cars seemed to be humming just for the fun of it. The sky was clear, there would be no thunder tonight.

Straight through lightning, he thought. And shuddered.

Straight through straight, he thought.

If only one could.

He remained standing deep in thought by the bench that opened up and became his bed at night.

From an early age Mattis had slept on the bench in the living room – so he really knew it well. He’d decided that he’d go on doing it for the rest of his life. There were scratches in the bench from the time when Mattis was a boy and had been given a knife. There were also thick, faded pencil marks on the unpainted wood, from the time when he had been given a pencil. These lines and strange figures lay underneath the lid, and he looked at them every night before he went to sleep, and liked them because they never changed. They were what they were supposed to be. You could rely on them.

The little room at the back was Hege’s. Mattis tore himself away and went into it, for that was where the only mirror in the house hung.

He entered her room. There was a clean smell there, but little else, apart from the mirror he needed.

“Hm!” he exclaimed as he caught sight of himself in the glass.

It really was a long time since he had looked at himself in the mirror in this way. Now and then he came in here to fetch the mirror when he was going to shave. But then he concentrated on shaving, and even so he didn’t get the stubble off properly.

Now he was looking at Mattis, sort of.

No, no! said a voice inside him. A silent little cry he couldn’t really explain.

“Not much to look at,” he mumbled.

“Not much fat,” he added.

“Not much flesh either.”

“Badly shaven,” he said.

It sounded depressing.

“But there’s something though,” he said quickly and went on looking.

The mirror was not perfectly good either, it distorted the image – but both he and Hege had got used to this over the years.

Mattis hadn’t been in there long before his thoughts began to wander, standing as he was in this clean-smelling feminine room.

I’m standing looking at myself in the mirror like a girl, he thought, and felt a sense of well-being creeping over him.

I’m sure many a girl has stood looking at herself in the worn glass of this mirror before putting on her clothes.

He conjured up many beautiful, alluring images.

Let me think of them.

But he stopped himself.

No, mustn’t think of girls in the middle of the week. That’s not allowed. Nobody does that.

He felt uncertain: I’m afraid I do, now and then, he admitted.

But nobody knows.

He looked himself in the face. Caught his glance, it was immediately filled with defiance. Surely I can, as long as I don’t tell anybody.

It’s just the way I am.

He caught his glance again – now his eyes widened and opened out, full of expectation.

What’s this?

Well, I never, said a voice inside him, full of wonder, yet addressed to no one in particular. Sometimes you had to say things like this, for almost no reason, for far less reason than he had now.

“But this isn’t much to look at,” he said aloud. He had to brush aside all the things that had taken possession of him, but that didn’t belong to the moment.

The face opposite him was thin and full of thought. Pale, but a pair of eyes pulled at him and wouldn’t let go.

He felt like saying to the person in front of him: Where on earth do you come from!

Why did you come?

There would be no reply.

But it was to be found in those eyes – eyes that were not his, but came from far off and had looked through night and day. It came nearer. It lit up. Then it was gone again and all was black.

He thought quickly: Mattis the Simpleton.

Simple Simon.

How they would laugh if they saw me standing here, looking at myself in the mirror.

At last he remembered what he’d really come into Hege’s room for. He’d come to look for gray hair.

None in front. He bent his head, and in his search for gray hair on top his eyes rolled upward under the lock of hair that fell over his forehead. Not a single one. Then he peered as far back behind each ear as he could.

Not a single gray hair anywhere. And he was only three years younger than Hege after all, and she was forty.

No, here’s a fellow with hair that’ll last him for some time, he thought.

But in three years I’ll have caught up with Hege.

Not a single gray hair. My word, I’m going to tell Hege about this and give her a real fright, he thought, forgetting that she hadn’t liked this topic of conversation.

He strode out again. Hege was bound to be sitting on the steps with her sweater-work still.

There she was right enough. The sweater seemed to grow of its own accord in her quick hands. They were performing a kind of silent dance, while the sweater took shape, unaided.

“Well?” she said, seeing him come out in such a hurry.

Mattis pointed to his mop of hair:

“Not a single gray hair on me, Hege. I’ve been inside and looked in the mirror.”

Hege didn’t want to discuss the subject again.

“I see,” she said curtly.

“Isn’t it splendid?” he asked.

“Of course it’s splendid,” she replied calmly.

“Yes, just look at you,” he said, “I bet you wish—”

“Uff!”

He stopped at once. There was something about Hege that pulled him up short.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, frightened.

At last she got up.

“Mattis.”

He looked at her, nervously.

“Well, go on.”

“I don’t think it’s much fun, the way you’re going on and on about this tonight.”

“Fun? Do we have fun?” he replied. What an odd thing for her to say, he thought.

Hege looked at him helplessly. Frightened all of a sudden. Something had to be done quickly, for Mattis was on the point of starting something she couldn’t cope with.

“We have more fun than you realize,” she said firmly, driving the point home like a nail. “It’s just that you don’t give it a thought. We have fun every single day!”

He bent his head, but asked: “When?”

“When?” she said, sternly.

She went on again. This had to be stopped.

“Use your brains, Mattis,” she said, forgetting the usual sting. Stood above him, insistent, although she was shorter.

Mattis replied: “I’m thinking so hard it’s almost killing me.”

“Then surely you remember lots of fun.”

He thought, gave no reply.

Hege persisted. The fact had to be established so firmly that there was no room left for the slightest doubt.

“We have more fun than other people!”

“Do we really?” He started mumbling feebly, almost inaudibly.

“Yes!” she said. “And you must never forget it.”

She left it at that. Mattis straightened up a little, but dared not protest. Hege was clever and no doubt knew what things were fun. Best not to protest and make a fool of oneself.

She looked at him angrily.

“I didn’t realize this,” was all he said.

Then a bright idea suddenly struck him, and he said in a happy voice: “It was a good thing you told me.”

“What?”

“Since I didn’t know.”

He felt happy, laughed a little.

“Are you going in already?” he said.

Hege gave him a weary nod instead of answering and went into the house.

HEGE WENT to bed earlier than usual that evening, too. At least she went into her room earlier. Mattis was about to ask why, but before he managed to do so she stopped him with an impatient: “Oh wait until tomorrow, Mattis! Please, dear you, let this be enough for today.”

Listening to her, he lost the desire to ask any more questions. She was in a bad mood, she could go. He wondered if he’d done anything wrong. The business of her hair, no doubt. Was it so dreadful that her hair was gray while his wasn’t? After all, he couldn’t help it.

But it was Hege who fed him, so she had him well in her grip. Above all she was clever, and that was what he respected most.

Hege left him without saying another word. He stayed behind thinking about it all.

Tomorrow I must take a trip around the farms and see if anybody’s got any work for me, he thought, dreading it already.

Because that’s the root of the trouble. Hege feeds me all year round. And so she has for forty years, he felt he might as well add. At least he wouldn’t be making it out to be less than it actually was.

Feeds me. Feeds me.

The word had a bitter taste. It was like chewing the bark of an aspen tree.

And chew it he had to, year in, year out. Sitting alone as he was now. He had to put it on his tongue and taste it. There was no escape. It was the bitterest of all the words he knew.

Tomorrow I’m going to work.

Provided nothing stops me, he added quickly, to be on the safe side.

He had a hazy recollection of the many days when he’d started working for somebody. On a farm or in the fields, or in the forest. There was always something which upset things for him so that he couldn’t finish the job. And after that they didn’t ask him to work there anymore. The clever ones, the ones who owned things and had jobs to offer, they looked right through him.

And so he had to return to Hege empty-handed. She was used to it by now and just accepted it. But she went on struggling in order to keep him. Wonder what she really thought about it after all.

Be tough tomorrow. Face it bravely, go over to the farms and ask for a job.

“I can’t go on like this forever,” he said in a fierce tone into the empty air. “I must get some work, Hege’s gone gray.”

He began to realize: It’s me who’s made Hege go gray.

Gradually the whole truth of the matter dawned on him. He felt very ashamed of himself.

IT GREW LATE. Much later than Mattis generally stayed up. All the same he didn’t feel like going to bed, and went on strolling around outside. When something was eating you, it was even worse lying in bed, twisting and turning.

Perhaps Hege isn’t asleep either. She went into her room early just to avoid me.