The Cold Song (20 page)

“Okay, whatever,” Siri shouted. “Can you send him down? I’ll take him out.”

Jon got up from his chair and opened the door for Leopold and shouted, “Great! Here he comes. Thanks! Nearly there!”

He heard her sigh. He heard it through all the other noises. She was mad. He knew it. Later, he would ask her about her afternoon; he would pretend he hadn’t heard their daughter’s “FUCK YOU, MAMA,” engrossed as he was in his writing, and he would listen to her. His fingers danced over the keys.
In a significant lecture on the aesthetics of literary influence at the second congress of the International Comparative Literature Association (reprinted in his book
Literature as System,
published in 1971), the Spanish critic Claudio Guillén put it very succinctly: It is important … that the study of a topic such as, say, Dutch poetry be encouraged not for charitable but for poetic reasons
.

Jon heard the door slam and a moment or two later he peeked out the window and saw Siri and Leopold on the street outside their house, Leopold tugging and straining at the leash—that dog was strong as an ox—and Siri doing
her best to stay on her feet, tugging and straining in return. Leopold squatted in order to shit while Siri looked on peevishly, clutching a small black plastic bag. She drew the bag over her hand, bent down, and picked up the turd. But instead of getting up again she stayed where she was, crouched down with the plastic-wrapped turd in her hand, her head bowed. Leopold wriggled and squirmed around her, but she stayed crouched down, didn’t move, and Jon wondered why she wasn’t getting up, had she hurt her back or been struck by anxiety, lost her ground, and he was all set to run out to her and take her in his arms and comfort her, but then she stood up, tugged on the leash, dropped the turd bag into the nearest trash can, and disappeared around the corner—half walking, half running to keep up with the panting dog.

Leopold was every dog’s revenge on mankind. It is humiliating not to be able to control your dog. It is a sign of weakness. Lack of willpower. Lack of perseverance. It proves that you’re lazy. Slothful. Sloth. One of the seven deadly sins: acedia (or accidie or accedie, from the Latin
acedia
and the Greek άκηδκία meaning neglect, indifference, nonchalance, carelessness). Rather like a writer who doesn’t write. But unlike a dog owner who can’t control his dog, a writer who doesn’t write can hide behind the excuse that he is
thinking
, that
literature takes time
, he can even allow himself a yawn or snigger of contempt at fellow authors who spew out a new book every year. Jon had used these very words himself just a few weeks ago, when asked by a journalist why it was taking him so long to write part three. Writer’s block? Might the whole notion of a
trilogy have been a mistake in the first place? The journalist was a young female summer temp named Charlotte. She had a PhD in literature and had had two collections of poetry published. Jon had decided in advance not to sleep with her, she was twenty-seven, had milky thighs and a tattoo, but then he changed his mind. Her line of questioning was driving him crazy and maybe if he fucked her, she’d shut up.

“Well, here’s what I think,” said Charlotte, “I think there is something very contrived about the whole notion of a trilogy. I mean, this is something you decide on beforehand, along with your publisher, before you’ve even written a single word, possibly simply in order to sell more books, sell the idea of this very big literary event, and I guess what I’m asking is if your trilogy was motivated more by commercial concerns than literary ones?”

It is impossible to act as if everything is fine, when the dog is straining at the leash and setting the pace and won’t sit when you say
Sit
or heel when you say
Heel
. It is there for everyone to see: You’ve got no control over your dog, you’re a spineless little man. Ulysses’s dog didn’t question Ulysses’s authority. Argos didn’t tug and strain at the leash, but waited patiently for his owner for ten long years, while Ulysses himself fought and won a lengthy war and then slowly wended his way home to Ithaca. Homer, Shakespeare, Kafka, Pynchon, Jules Verne, Poe, Steinbeck. They all wrote about dogs.
Literary
dogs. Click click click. But Jon’s dog just strained at his leash and had no idea how to be a literary dog. Jon’s dog had no idea of how to be a dog, period.

But here they were. His family. Liv calling, “Papa, Papa, I gathered some shells for you.” And Alma’s “FUCK YOU, MAMA.” He noticed that his daughter had yelled
fuck you
and
Mama
—such a tender word, mama—in the same breath.

The thing was: Alma had cut off a chunk of her teacher’s hair. First Milla disappears and then Alma cuts her teacher’s hair off.

Jon tried to block out the image of the teacher with hacked hair, a big nose, and red-rimmed eyes.

Why, Alma?

They had asked her again and again and all she did was shrug or say, “I don’t know why. Her hair was just really long.”

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t talked to Alma about the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, white lies and black lies. Siri and Jon weren’t bad parents. Jon wasn’t a bad father. He loved his children.

On his computer he wrote:
I want to write about fathers and daughters
.

And then he wrote:
Talk to her!

But when did Alma start acting different? He pondered the word
different
and wondered if it was the right one. Was it because of Milla’s disappearance? No. Alma had always been … 
different
. He had taken secret pride in her uniqueness, as had Siri. Jon was reminded of an incident six years earlier when
Alma was seven and Siri was pregnant with Liv. They were sitting under the blue lamp in the kitchen, it was snowing outside, thick white snowflakes falling on the rough gray stone walls of the house.

“To have an imagination,” Siri had said, “means that you like to make up stories, that you have worlds inside of you that you can travel to and live in, either alone or with other people. When Papa writes books, he makes up stories that other people can read and … and … then they become their stories too, just as
Pippi Longstocking
and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
are your stories—”

“Papa doesn’t write books, he just pretends to,” Alma broke in.

“That’s not true, Alma,” Siri replied. “What makes you say that? Papa has just had a big book published and now he’s writing a new one. You know that.”

Alma shrugged and said, “But Astrid Lindgren wrote
Pippi Longstocking
, not me.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You said that
Pippi Longstocking
and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
were
my
stories.”

“What I mean,” Siri said, “is that to have a good imagination is a valuable thing.” She laid her hand over her teacup. “Don’t put a lid on your imagination, because your imagination enables you both to make up stories and to identify with stories, identify with other lives, with how other people think and feel, and while the stories may not be true, well we
know
there’s no such thing as a girl or boy who’s strong enough to
lift a horse, we
know
that Roald Dahl used his imagination to make up the story about
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, and yet in a way these stories are still true, as all good stories are, I mean.”

Alma took a bite of her bread, looked at her mother, and said, “I didn’t understand any of that, now let’s not talk about it anymore.”

“Oh yes, but we will,” Siri said, looking to Jon for help. “I’d like to say something about lying,” she went on, “I think we lie in order to achieve something, you tell a story that’s not true because you don’t want to or don’t dare to tell the truth, or because you want to trick someone, and it’s very important not to lie, the lies you tell become a kind of wall between you and other people. When you lie, you can really hurt other people and you can hurt yourself—”

“Can I have some more chocolate milk?” Alma interrupted.

“It’s a bit difficult, from what you’re saying, to understand the difference between a lie, which is a bad thing, and having imagination, which is a good thing,” Jon muttered, gazing at the ceiling.

“What did Papa say?” Alma asked.

“Papa didn’t say anything, really,” Siri replied. She took a sip from her teacup and shot Jon a furious look. “Or rather, Papa doesn’t think Mama is explaining things very well,” Siri went on, “and maybe Papa could explain it much better, although he’s not saying anything right now, is he? The thing is, Alma, it’s not okay to lie the way you did in school today.”

This conversation had been prompted, Jon recalled, by the fact that Alma had told her sweet young teacher, Miss Molly, that she couldn’t go out and play with the other children because her mother was dying.

“I want to rest in your arms,” Alma had said
.

“Are you tired, Alma?”

“No, I’m not tired. But Mama’s tired.” Alma lowered her voice: “Mama has cancer and she’s going to die.”

“My God, Alma?” young Molly whispered
.

“Mama has cancer, and now she’s going to die,” Alma continued. “First she’s going to lose all her hair. And then she’ll die. Very soon, probably. Can I rest in your arms now?”

And Alma had flung her arms around her teacher. “There! I want to stay with you! Don’t leave me!”

And Jon recalled Siri’s voice that same evening. The despair. The weariness. Had it started to come undone already then, long before the writing became so hard, long before their financial troubles, long before Milla’s disappearance, and long before Jenny started drinking again?

“But how do you even know what cancer is?” Siri whispered as they sat there in the kitchen under the blue lamp. “Does someone you know have a mother or father who’s ill?”

“Nope!” Alma said.

“But why did you tell Miss Molly that your mother had cancer and was going to die?” Jon interjected.

Alma had only recently learned to shrug. “Don’t know,” she said.

“I
don’t
have cancer, you know,” Siri said. “I’m very healthy and I’m not going to die. Not yet. We’ll all die someday. But not for a very long time and … and people don’t always die of cancer.”

“Are you worried that Mama or I will die?” Jon asked. “Was that why you told Molly that story? Because you were worried?”

“Nope,” said Alma.

“Well, why then?” Siri asked.

Alma shrugged again, and said, “Can we just not talk about it anymore?”

Soon Siri would come up and tell him that Alma had screamed “FUCK YOU, MAMA” at her, she would repeat that she simply couldn’t understand why Alma had picked up a pair of scissors and cut her teacher’s hair off, she would say that she dreaded the thought of more newspaper stories, first Milla’s disappearance, then Alma attacking her teacher, she would say that it had all started when Milla came to Mailund, the dreariness, no, the sadness, it was Milla’s fault, all of it, and then she would flop down onto the floor and say she didn’t see why Jenny couldn’t just die now. Jenny who could never take anything seriously, Jenny who had taken Alma with her in the car, drinking and driving, on that awful night when Milla disappeared. Jenny who had only laughed when she heard about the cutting-the-teacher’s-hair thing.

“I kind of understand why she did it,” was all she’d had to say.

“And her drinking,” Siri said. “I don’t know whether she’s drunk all the time now or what’s going on down there. Every time I call it’s Irma who answers the phone and she always says that Mama’s asleep or out or busy.”

And Siri would cover her face with her hands and say, “I can’t take this. I can’t take it. I can’t take it anymore.”

OCTOBER
23, 2008. To my wife.

What would you say if I told you I had been in the annex that morning after you had gone to sleep, and that I took her diary? I don’t know what made me do it. I really don’t. It was stupid. She had told me that she had a secret scrapbook—yes, that’s what she called it. And I was afraid that there might be something about her and me in there, but there was nothing. There was nothing, because
it was nothing
. I didn’t touch her. A kiss on the cheek. A few kind words. She wasn’t happy, you know. She wasn’t happy staying with us at Mailund. I felt sorry for her. You were angry with her all the time.

Anyway, I tucked the diary into my waistband, under my thick sweater, and took it up to the attic and quickly leafed through it. Lots of photographs. Quotations. Dried flowers. Tufts of grass.

She had faith apparently. There were many prayers and psalms in the book, this little one among them:

Burning in the night

In this world of darkness

So let us shine
,

You in your small corner

And I in mine
.

Do you remember how we used to sing to Liv and Alma when they were little? It was the only way for them to fall asleep.

I know you lie awake at night, wondering what happened to her. Nobody just disappears, you say. But they do, all the time. It happens all the time. You disappeared. I disappeared. We disappeared from each other. But nobody just
disappears
, you would say again, annoyed at me for belittling this dreadful thing that happened to Milla by comparing it to our own private little hell.

“I’m talking about
literally
disappearing,” you’d say. “Not
figuratively
disappearing.”

“People disappear all the time, literally and figuratively,” I’d reply then. “You know that.”

So I leafed through the diary and was relieved. Nothing about her and me. Not that there had been anything to write about. But you never know what’s going on in other people’s minds.

Here’s the thing: The person who appeared on almost every page was you! Did you know that she took pictures of you and stuck them in her book? Including a series of photos of you asleep in a wicker chair in the garden.

And then there were the pictures of the children. And of the house. And one of Irma having a surreptitious smoke behind the annex. Milla had obviously crept up on her and tried to take her picture without her being aware of it (like the pictures of you!), and Irma must have looked around just as Milla clicked the shutter. She looked very angry.