Be a good boy, she says
and Kristoffer pulls back his hand and he looks at Aliss and then Kristoffer sees the pretty brown almost black boat lying there, in the middle of all that blue, and then he takes a step, and another, out on the pier, and then he goes farther and he looks at the boat, black and pretty in the blue water, and Kristoffer is almost running out on the pier and then he is at the edge of the pier and he takes another step and he is there in empty space and then he is there in the water
Kristoffer, God save you! Aliss screams
and Aliss lets the sheep head be and lets the stick be and she is on the pier and she lies down flat on the edge of the pier and she stretches out her arm and she feels around in the water finds one of Kristoffer’s feet and grabs it and pulls the foot toward her and then she finds an arm and she pulls Kristoffer up over the edge of the pier
No you’ve really done it now, Aliss says
I look away for a second and you run right into the water, she says
You can’t be trusted, she says
No how could that happen, she says
and Aliss picks up Kristoffer, who suddenly starts shrieking with all his might, and she presses him to her breast, and then she hurries over to the boathouse
It’s so cold in that water, yes, we need to get you inside so you can warm up, Aliss says
You can’t catch cold on me, you good little boy, she says
My best little boy, you can’t get sick and go away from your mama now, no, she says
You’re my best little boy, Kristoffer, she says
and Aliss rubs Kristoffer’s back and he has started to shake, shiver after shiver goes through his body
You can’t freeze, and catch cold, Kristoffer, good boy, Aliss says
No no, she says
Now you can’t catch cold on me, you’re a good boy, she says
and he sees, standing there on the little road, Aliss come up the hill toward him with Kristoffer pressed against her breast, she comes running, and with black hair thick around her face, and those big eyes, and Aliss is coming as fast as she can on her short legs, and then Kristoffer’s terrified shrieking, and then this darkness, and these winds, and the rain, and now he has to get home soon, he thinks, because he can’t just stay standing on the little road and not go into his own house, where he’s lived his whole life, home into the old house, he thinks and he sees Aliss go past him and then he looks at her back, Aliss’s back, his great-great-grandmother’s back, that’s her, that’s Aliss, that’s her he sees hurrying around the corner, with her black hair hanging far down her back, and with her narrow hips, her short thin legs. That’s Aliss. That’s his great-great-grandmother, probably around twenty years old, he thinks, and the boy she’s pressing to her breast, about two years old probably, that’s his great-grandfather, Kristoffer. And he goes around the corner too, and he looks at Aliss with Kristoffer pressed against her breast go home through the front door of the old house, and he sees the door shut and she sees, lying there on the bench, the hall door open and then she sees a small woman with long black hair come in, she has big eyes, she is carrying a boy pressed against her breast and the woman rushes across the room and then she puts the boy down next to her on the edge of the bench and then the woman pulls the boy’s pants off, his sweater, she strips the boy totally naked and then she lays him down on the bench next to her, and the woman rubs his back again and again
There there, good boy, don’t be cold anymore, the woman says
Good boy Kristoffer, now you’ll get all warm, the woman says
Don’t freeze now, she says
Mama Aliss is here to rub you till you’re all warm, you’re a good boy, she says
and Aliss rubs Kristoffer all over his back again and again and she sees Aliss stand up and she looks at Kristoffer lying there next to her on the bench, and he is wet, he’s sobbing a little, and there are shivers going through his body, and she sees Aliss go open the bedroom door and go in and then come back in and she is carrying a wool blanket and then Aliss comes over to the bench and she spreads the blanket out all over Kristoffer and then Aliss sits down on the edge of the bench and she starts to rub Kristoffer’s back again, over and over, rubbing and rubbing his back
So, my darling Kristoffer, now you’re getting warm again, good little Kristoffer, Aliss says
There there, good boy, good boy Kristoffer, she says Just think, you fell in the water, such a little boy and you fell in the water, but luckily Mama Aliss was there, yes, she says
and she sees Aliss rub Kristoffer’s back again and again and she looks at the window and she sees herself standing there looking out the window, and she’s always standing there, why does she always have to stand there? there’s no reason for her to stand there? she thinks and then she hears that Kristoffer is breathing evenly now and she sees Aliss stand up and go out the kitchen door and she looks at Kristoffer and then she puts her arms around him and then she hugs Kristoffer close and then she rubs and she rubs his back and then she lightly strokes his hair and then she again sees herself standing there in front of the window and looking out, and she has been standing there so long now, almost motionless, she has stood there in front of the window, she thinks and she thinks, standing there in front of the window, that now he really does have to come home soon, why doesn’t he come home? and it’s so cold out, windy, and raining, and why doesn’t he come home? she thinks, and there, out there in the middle of the fjord, did she see something? no, nothing, she probably just imagined it? she thinks, but now she will probably have to go out soon and look for him, she thinks, because she can’t just stand here like this, in front of the window, and he can’t really have gone out in his boat in this weather? or can he? no, he couldn’t have, she thinks, but there, down there on the shore, isn’t that a fire she sees there? no it can’t be, on this dark evening, late in November, in the rain and the wind, but still that really is a fire she’s seeing, isn’t it? she thinks, it is, it’s a fire, and now she has to go look for him, whether she wants to or not, she thinks and she turns around and she walks across the room and she thinks that now she really will have to go look for him soon and he thinks that he really has to go inside soon, he thinks, standing there in the yard and looking at the front step, big and broad, lying there heavy in the light outside, and in this weather he can’t just stay standing around outside, he thinks, it’s windy and raining, it is, and it’s cold, too cold to stay outside, and what’s wrong with him? he thinks, why can’t he just go inside? what is it, why is he still waiting? what’s stopping him? what is it? he thinks and he opens the front door and the doorknob is loose, two screws are missing and the other three are loose, and he needs to fix that, he thinks, but it’s been like that for so long already, for years, he thinks, and he has thought that he needed to fix it so many times, he thinks, he thought it over and over again but it always just stays the way it is, he’ll probably never do anything about it until the doorknob falls off and is lying on the front step, he thinks and he walks into the hall and the old walls there settle into place all around him and say something to him, the same way they always have, he thinks, it’s always like that, whether he notices it and thinks about it or not the walls are there, and it is as if silent voices are speaking from them, as if a big tongue is there in the walls and this tongue is saying something that can never be said with words, he knows it, he thinks, and what it’s saying is something behind the words that are usually said, something in the wall’s tongue, he thinks, and he stands there and looks at the walls, no, what is wrong with him today? why is he being like this? he thinks, and he puts his hand flat on the wall, and it seems like the wall is telling him something, he thinks, something that can’t be said but that is, just is, he thinks, and it’s almost like he is touching a person, he thinks, almost like something is being said the way something is said when you touch someone, he thinks and he strokes the wall and there is almost a caress in his fingers running over the old brown paneling and then he hears footsteps and he pulls his hand back and then he sees the door from the room open and there she is standing in the doorway