The End of the Ocean

Chapter 9 SIGNE

Finally I can see the ocean meeting the sky. It grows lighter; the sun will soon rise behind me, above the mountains in the east. I keep on, towards open water, wait for the wind, look at the meter—the diesel tank is full, I can keep going like this for a long time and in the course of a few hours no doubt the wind will help me.

I take in the sensation of the helm against my hands, the smooth, varnished woodwork; I have to steer manually, there’s not enough wind and it’s too unstable for the self-steering wind vane. There are skerries astern, so I set my course for the southwest. Maybe they’ve discovered it by now, what has happened in the harbor, the ice bobbing in the fjord. Maybe they have discovered it and simultaneously noticed that I am gone, too. They will figure it out before long, certainly—the company, the police, Magnus—but by then it will already be too late, I will already be far out at sea.

The feeling of being underway, that’s the best thing about a boat, knowing that you will get there, but not knowing when. Having a destination, but having not yet arrived.

I glance at the twelve containers of ice. I put them in the saloon, stacked them on the red wool-upholstered couches. It’s cramped but I can still reach the cooker, the instruments, and I can creep into the forepeak cabin and sleep there later, but not out here on deck, not on the open sea.

In the course of the morning the wind picks up—a light, early summer wind from the southeast. I raise the sail, the wind catches hold of it, that’s how it should be, just like that, surging forward in a broad, diagonal cross. I adjust the wind vane, am so glad I have it instead of autopilot, those cheap mechanisms rust just like that. The manufacturers advertise that they will last forever, are maintenance-free, but at sea nothing is maintenance-free, salt and water will sooner or later have their way with everything, the way nature sooner or later destroys everything man-made. I drag cushions out of the cockpit’s stowage space aport, lay them on the bench and settle in there, turning my face towards the sun. It is warm, prickling my skin. It has been a day and a half since I last slept; now I shut my eyes and drop off for a few minutes, awaken again, glancing around me quickly. No vessels in sight, land is already far behind me. I can glimpse only a strip of land on the horizon in the east, there is nobody here but me. I can rest a little more, because I have control over the boat, can steer it alone, like so many solitary skippers before me, like Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail around the world alone. How did he manage it, without a wind vane, without GPS, or an echo sounder, for 74,000 kilometers? He was fifty-one when he started in 1895 and his journey lasted for four years. He completed the sailing trip, but perished in the end, was lost at sea and nobody found him, maybe the Spray is still sailing the seven seas, maybe I will meet it out here, maybe only time and gender differentiate us, for the solitary sailor’s loneliness overshadows most dissimilarities.

The skipper’s nap is also something we have in common, under a blanket on the leeward cockpit bench, five minutes of rest, deep sleep, dropping straight into a dream, before I wake myself up, get onto my knees, look around me for a few seconds—still no boats, no skerries, no obstacles—the seconds I am awake scarcely exist. I sink down on the bench again and am back in the same dream.

The wind and the rushing roar of the ocean become the rumbling of a river. I am beside the River Breio, standing on the bridge, a rough construction of sun-bleached wood. I am young and an adult at the same time, I am just me, the person I have always been, whether I am fifteen, thirty-five or fifty. I am running late for something—a flight, to India, I have to catch a flight to India, I will be in Narmada for months, protesting against the dam they are building, the dam that will put villages underwater, force thousands out of their homes, protesting against the untouchables’ lack of rights. That’s where I’m headed, but before I leave, I have to check my suitcase, make sure I haven’t forgotten anything; it’s by my feet and I try to open it, but the lid is stuck, the suitcase is held together by two straps. I fiddle with them, the leather of the straps is stiff between my fingers, I can’t get them undone and I know the plane is departing soon, that there is only this one flight and then I notice that I’m not wearing shoes, I can’t go all the way from here to the airport without shoes on, maybe there are shoes in the suitcase I can’t open. I lift it, take it with me, walk slowly across the bridge, continue across the site access road, it is full of sharp stones—big, hard stones that cut the skin on the soles of my feet. I pick my way forward, trying to find spots to put my feet, but my progress is slow, I am walking too slowly.

I wake up, look around me, the 360-degree gaze, the coast is clear, but I don’t close my eyes to sleep again, instead I sit up. I am here, but also still there, by the river.

I remember a walk, I was maybe nine or ten years old, Daddy and I were on a walk early on a Sunday morning along the River Breio. At first I was so happy, it had been months since we’d spent time together, he didn’t have the time any longer, or the desire. He was too busy arguing with Mommy, yelling at Mommy. Daddy had told me to stop shouting because you can damage your hearing but now he was the one shouting and screaming.

But this morning I was allowed to accompany him. I woke up early and he was already on his way out. He was planning to go alone, he said, but when I pestered him, he gave in and let me come along. It was just the two of us. I think I talked a lot, tried to ask about things we saw, animals and plants, but he gave me single-word answers and I didn’t understand until later that it was because he really didn’t want me with him.

We followed the road along the fjord until we reached a fork. There hadn’t been a fork in the road there before, there had only been a single road, but now it forked into two roads, and one of the roads, the old part, continued along the fjord, while the other followed the River Breio up the mountain.

The road was rough and rocky, with deep ruts from heavy vehicles. It was a temporary road for construction; I hadn’t seen it before, only heard them talk of it, especially him—the access road. He used to spit the words out, as if they had an unpleasant taste.

And it was an ugly road, I could see that now, an ugly, stony road which ruined the landscape it passed through, lined with hard stones, dirty and muddy, it tore the landscape in two.

But this was the road Daddy wanted us to take. He walked without hesitation, long strides and heavy shoes against the ground, shoes that soon were covered in mud and filth.

When we’d walked a short distance up the mountainside he turned to face me and finally he started to talk. But it was like he wasn’t talking to me.

“Aluminum,” he said. That was a difficult word; I wondered if it was written ali or alu or almi, like the word almond—I wondered about this while I listened to Daddy, but he said the word so quickly that I couldn’t distinguish between the sounds.

“Hydraulic power is actually about aluminum, about war, because it’s the aluminum plants that demand an increase in power production and without the production of weapons, eight out of ten aluminum plants would go bankrupt. People think this is about electricity—for schools, daycare centers, hospitals, for people’s homes—but it’s really about weapons and war, Norway’s entire development is based on aluminum and weapons.”

I didn’t know how I was supposed to answer.

We stood there with our heads bowed, looking at the river, and near a particularly powerful waterfall, we saw a rainbow shimmering.

“Roygbiv,” I said.

“What?”

“The colors of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.”

“It’s enormous,” Daddy said, and I thought he meant the rainbow, but he was pointing at the river. “It’s the snow from the mountain. The snowfall this year has been extreme. This is the last year we will see the river like that. Next year it will be gone.”

“And the rainbow?” I said.

“That too, you understand that, certainly.”

It was a silly question. I felt suddenly ashamed—I knew that the rainbow was produced by light that was refracted by drops of water, he had explained that to me long ago and I wasn’t one to forget, I stored everything away, especially things he told me.

“But it will still be in the sky,” I said, and hoped it would comfort him. “When it rains while the sun is shining, then we’ll see it, it will appear, like a bridge across the fjord.”

The last thing was something I’d heard him say once and I thought it sounded nice.

He didn’t answer, so I continued, raising my voice.

“You said that, do you remember, Daddy, that God painted the rainbow in the sky as a promise to Noah that he would never again let a flood destroy the world?”

He used to like it, that I told him about things I had learned, that impressed him, but he didn’t answer me now either.

“Do you remember that? And then you asked me what I thought about it. And then I said it was a fairy tale. Because if the story was true, the rainbow would have to be in the sky all the time. Do you remember that I said that? That it was a fairy tale?”

He gave a slight nod.

“Noah didn’t exist,” I said. “The flood didn’t happen.”

He was just as silent.

“THE FLOOD DIDN’T HAPPEN!”

“Good, Signe,” Daddy said finally, but his voice was distant.

Shouting didn’t help. All my life shouting had usually helped, but now it no longer had any effect on him and I didn’t understand why.

The river unfolded before us, a broad piece of fabric that somebody had unwound from a roll of shiny material, I thought, invisible. It could be made into a cloak of invisibility, a freezing cloak of invisibility and maybe that was the one I was wearing now, without knowing it.

Suddenly Daddy started walking again, quickly. I trotted behind him, on the horrible access road, just wanting to go home, but I didn’t dare ask, didn’t dare stop.

Further up the mountainside the road crossed the river by way of a recently constructed bridge that smelled of fresh woodwork, and out on the bridge he finally stopped again and now he looked at me.

“Feel that, Signe, can you feel the water flowing?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you feel it?”

“YES!”

The water caused a vibration under my feet, made me shake all over.

“Look around you,” he said. “Everything around you is going to change. A tunnel will be dug here and the water will be diverted away. Down there is where the power plant will be,” he pointed. “And from there they will install enormous power lines. And the river, it will disappear. In the riverbed, where it’s flowing now, there will only be stone.”

“What about the freshwater pearl mussels?”

“They will die.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Who will clean the water?”

“There won’t be any water to clean.”

Then he started walking again and I didn’t dare ask about anything else. We continued for yet another hour, maybe two, up a steep incline. My back was sweating. I wanted to ask Daddy to slow down, but couldn’t bring myself to do it; he strode along in front of me, all I could see was his back, his narrow shoulders under his knapsack and I couldn’t think of anything except keeping up with him, upwards, upwards, the whole time upwards.

Finally we reached the tree line. I was breathing so hard that my throat was burning, but here the landscape flattened out. The cabin on Sønstebø’s old summer farm tilted towards the ground, enclosed by a dilapidated fence. The sheep had just been let out to graze; the lambs bleated softly, fragile sounds as they trotted behind their parents. On the horizon I saw Blåfonna, a grayish-white tongue that ate its way into the tussocks of heather, moss and grass.

The road came to an end in the middle of nowhere and, where it terminated, Daddy also stopped for a moment.

“This is where the dam will be,” he said. “Everything you see now will be dammed up, underwater.”

“Everything?” I said.

“Everything.”

He took a few more steps, straight into the patch of heather, but then it was as if he couldn’t take any more, because all of a sudden he sat down on the slope without taking off his knapsack, so it was shoved up his back by the mound behind him, giving him a humpback.

He didn’t ask me if I wanted to sit down too, it was like he was alone, but I sat down anyway and then he seemed to notice me, because he took off his knapsack, opened it and took out a lunchbox.

“Here. You must be hungry.”

I took the sandwich on top. My stomach was growling, I was both hungry and thirsty, but nonetheless it was difficult to swallow.

I held the box out to Daddy. “Don’t you want some?”

“Later,” he said, and looked at his watch.

“You have to eat, you know, your body needs food to grow strong,” I said.

But he didn’t hear, just looked around, like he was waiting for someone.

I continued chewing, wishing the bread slices weren’t so thick, that there had been more butter, and I wished that I knew what I should say and do.

“I have to pee,” I finally said.

“You can go over there,” he said, and pointed at a clump of bushes, the only vegetation growing up here.

I hurried over, squatted behind the bushes, but didn’t think they concealed enough. He was just my daddy, I wasn’t shy, wasn’t afraid he would see me. It was rather that I didn’t want to see him. I sat there for a long time. The trickling between my legs was warm, a few drops hit one of my thighs, turning cold when I pulled my pants on again, two spots against the inside of my pants leg that would stiffen like salt water on my skin and that I would feel until I had the chance to wash myself.

I was about to go back to Daddy when I discovered somebody else who was also out walking on this day. He arrived in a truck that he parked where the access road came to an end. I hadn’t heard him coming, the silence of the mountains had swallowed up the sound of him, but I recognized both the man and the truck. It was Sønstebø, and Daddy approached him and I realized that Daddy had come here to meet him. It was Sønstebø Daddy had been waiting for.

They talked, the two men, and the mountain ate up their words. Or maybe they actually tried to speak softly, maybe they didn’t want anyone to hear, not even me, because they stood close together, the way lovers talk, the way Mommy and Daddy used to talk to each other before.

I rushed over, listening more closely and then I was able to make out a few words.

“The bridge,” Sønstebø said. “The bridge would be better.”

Then Daddy looked up. “Hi, Signe,” he said loudly.

And Sønstebø smiled at me—far too broadly, I thought—and again I thought of the doll.

“Hi, Signe,” he said.

“Hi,” I said.

“How nice that you and your father are taking a hike,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“We are heading home now,” Daddy said.

“Magnus stayed home today,” Sønstebø said to me.

“Oh,” I said.

Suddenly I wished that Magnus had come with him, that he was also standing here beside me.

“He’s studying for an arithmetic test,” Sønstebø said.

“Signe has to go home and write an essay,” Daddy said.

I had forgotten all about the essay, even though Norwegian was really my favorite subject at school.

“I can give you a lift down,” Sønstebø said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Daddy said.

Sønstebø looked at him in wonder. “Sure? Yes?”

“But do you think… maybe it’s not worth the risk?”

“I’m tired,” I said. “I want a ride.”

I remember that I didn’t understand what they meant, but I didn’t ask the right question: what wasn’t worth the risk, wasn’t getting a ride home worth it? Because I was so tired, now I could really feel it, my whole body ached, the walk up had been too much, far too much, and there was no point in our not accepting the ride, why should we have to walk down when there was a car?

“No…” Sønstebø said and looked at Daddy. “Maybe you’re right. It’s not worth the risk, we might run into somebody…”

“But I’m so tired,” I said.

“I want for us to walk, Signe,” Daddy said. “It will be nice.”

“No,” I said. “It won’t be nice.”

Then Sønstebø laughed. “Quite a girl you have there!”

And Daddy blushed, even though he usually liked it when I spoke my mind.

“I don’t want to walk,” I said. “Why can’t we go in the car? Why isn’t it worth the risk?”

“It will probably be fine,” Sønstebø said. “I can drive you part of the way.”

“No,” Daddy said.

And there was something about him that made me realize that he wouldn’t listen to me, that I would have to walk the whole, long way down. Daddy nodded at Sønstebø, and Sønstebø got into his car, started the engine and drove away, and I was tired and cold, it had started to sleet, the drops of pee were sticky on my thigh, shouting didn’t help anymore. I just wanted to go home.

Maybe it’s not worth the risk—the words got stuck in my head, made me heavier, I remember; it’s not worth the risk, the two of them might be seen together. The words weighed on me as we walked home, weighed on me when we met Mommy again and Daddy behaved as if nothing had happened.

I was freezing cold and worn out, and he didn’t appear to notice. But Mommy brought me up to the bathroom and filled the tub while I peeled off my clothes. They lay there on the floor, all dirty and damp, she put bubble bath in the water, it foamed up right away and the soap formed a soft white blanket on the surface that I could sink under and hide myself in.

The water was too hot, scorching hot, and I gasped. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, how it turned red and sort of blotchy.

Mommy left. I thought she was just going to fetch something—a bathrobe for me, maybe, or a clean towel, or something to drink or eat—but then she was just gone, because he was out there, I’d forgotten that, he was there, the thing the two of them shared, he was out there, the big, ugly thing and I couldn’t stop it, the rising voices, the yelling. I wasn’t a part of it, there wasn’t anything I could say, nothing that helped. I wished it could be stopped, but if it was just going to continue, at the very least I wanted to be a part of it.

The bathwater slowly turned lukewarm and then cold, my body got wrinkled, my toes turned red, soon fins grew between them. I became a water creature in the bathtub while they were screaming at each other outside, a tiny little water creature in a snow globe full of sticky, shiny fluid and plastic snowflakes. They lifted me up sometimes, shook me, looked at me, but then they put me down again and went away, back to one another, to share what they had in common, the big, evil, ugly thing, which was only between them, the two of them.

A few days later we heard about the explosion. It was Daddy who told us about it, Mommy had just come home. She had been away for a while, maybe she’d gone to Bergen—she went there often, to purchase supplies for the hotel. When she opened the door and came inside, Daddy was standing there waiting for her with the news.

“Svein Bredesen came by this morning,” he said. “The chief engineer.”

“Hi, Mommy,” I said.

“I know who Bredesen is,” Mommy said.

She stroked my hair quickly, without looking at me.

“He wanted to speak with you,” Daddy said.

“I can call him right away,” she said.

“But since you weren’t home, I took a message.”

“Yes?”

“Somebody destroyed the bridge over the access road. Last night. It was blown to bits.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing left of it. It will take weeks to repair it, maybe months.”

Mommy just stood there. At first she didn’t say anything and I tried to give her a hug, but she asked me to wait. Then she said that she didn’t understand how something like that could happen, how somebody could do something like that.

“The bridge and the road have to be there,” she said. “The power station and the pipes are going to be installed. It’s going to happen anyway.”

He didn’t say anything.

She stared at him for a long time. “Do you know something about this?”

Of course he said no. I remember how he stood there in the hallway with his hands in his pockets and said no, no, of course I don’t.

“But you must understand how angry some people are,” he said. “How angry people are. You must understand what you’ve started with people. Of course they’re furious. They’re so angry that they blow up bridges.”

“Are you defending it?” she asked, in a soft voice.

“I saw a nest yesterday,” he said. “A water ouzel’s nest. When the river disappears, we will lose the water ouzel.”

“There are thousands of them, thousands…”

“No, Iris. There are only a few.”

“There are thousands of rivers in Norway.”

“Many small rivers. But very few the size of the River Breio.”

“But do they know who did it? What did Svein say?”

“Svein? Are you on a first-name basis with him?”

“I mean Bredesen. What did he say? What do they know?”

“When the river disappears, the water ouzel will continue laying eggs there, in the old, dried-up riverbed,” Daddy continued, almost like he was chanting. “But the roaring of the river will no longer drown out the sound of their young when they cry for food. Predators will find them. They will be killed.”

“Bjørn, if you know something, you must tell me.”

“Daddy doesn’t know anything,” I said.

Maybe it’s not worth the risk.

“What did you say?”

She whirled around to face me, as if she had only just realized that I was there.

“Daddy doesn’t know anything.”

“Signe, you don’t understand this.”

“But he doesn’t know anything.”

“Of course I don’t,” Daddy said. “What would I know?”

Mommy was silent, looking at Daddy, then she turned towards me and tried to smile. “Are you hungry? Have you had dinner? Have the two of you eaten yet?”

“I just want dessert,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“I said that I don’t want dinner. Just dessert.”

“Yes,” she said.