The End of the Ocean

Chapter 29 SIGNE

Some break-ups happen slowly. You can’t put your finger on the moment when it’s over, it’s a gradual, silent transition, while other break-ups… I know the exact day I lost Magnus.

No. The day he lost me.

I remember the minute, the second, when I realized it was over.

The tide is about to turn. Right now, for a short while, the river is still and flat beneath me, beneath Blue, until once more the pull of the tide returns. It’s like driving on freshly paved asphalt, the engine pounding in my ears, allowing me no peace, only the sound of a monotonous droning. If I turned it off I would be at one with nature, able to hear the birds, the light wind I see blowing in the trees onshore, the gurgling of water in motion. But the engine is the only thing I have now.

I have put out tires as fenders along the entire broadside and the mast is lashed securely to the deck. Blue is a sad creature, amputated, bandaged and bound on a brown river.

Water itself is colorless. It’s the world around it that gives it color, reflections from the sky, from the surroundings; water is never just water.

Water absorbs and whirls around everything it meets.

Water is humus, sand, clay, plankton.

Water is given color by the bed it covers.

Water reflects the world.

And now the water is reflecting the blue sky above me and the tree branches reaching across the river, while its color also comes from a sludgy bed I can’t see.

At Castets-en-Dorthe, the first lock rises in front of me, a vertical wall many meters tall, and the river is banked by a muddy shore.

As I sail closer, I can hear the rushing sound from inside, torrents of water in continuous man-made motion.

A lock-keeper comes out onto the edge, looks down at me.

“Are you going in alone?”

He looks at me skeptically, as if he wants to finish the sentence with “old woman”—are you going in alone, old woman.

I feel the urge to retaliate, tell him about the storm I just weathered, about the fog, about all the voyages on the open sea, the demonstrations, the nights spent in a holding cell. What’s a lock compared to that?

“It’s prohibited,” he continues. “The current gets too strong when the sluices are filled. You won’t have a chance of keeping the boat against the wall on your own, you won’t stand a chance.”

“You have anyone on standby?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“Someone who can come with me, you know someone?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“But it’s prohibited,” he says, a little more meekly.

“I’m going in,” I say.

“Idiot,” he mumbles.

I start to answer but suddenly begin to doubt whether he actually said anything; the water is making too much noise and he has already turned half away, given up. He lets me through.

All the water is drained out of the sluice chamber, everything is electric here, but I know that further up the canal the locks are manual; the lock-keepers must open the gates.

The water gushes out into the river with an enormous force. I heave the boat to while I wait, then the gates open and I can sail in.

A metallic creaking sound can be heard as the gate slides into place. The smell of damp stone walls greets me, confined, stagnant; it’s called a chamber and I understand why—right now there’s no way out.

There’s just me and the water and I can manage this by myself. I throw two lines up to the lock-keeper; I can control both lines using the primary winch in the cockpit, but I’ve also set them up with natch blocks in the bow and stern, so I can pull in the slack on the lines as the boat rises.

But he doesn’t give me a nod of appreciation from above and I have time to wonder whether it will work before the water starts streaming in.

Slowly the water rises and Blue along with it. I pull in the mooring lines, pulling and pulling. I must at all times make sure that the boat stays up against the wall of the sluice. But the force of the water gushing in and filling up the sluice pulls at Blue, pulls at me. I curse the long keel that makes Blue especially difficult to handle as the water takes hold, trying to force the boat all the way back into the chamber, to throw us towards the gate I just passed through. The line slips on the winch. I lunge forward and grab hold of it again.

The lock-keeper shakes his head up there, swears and throws up his arms dramatically in a typically French manner. I turn away, can’t be bothered to pay any attention to him, concentrate on the lines, on pulling in the slack.

I don’t make any more mistakes. The sweat pours off me, I concentrate wholly on the lines, on keeping the side of the boat against the sluice’s one chamber wall and Blue is steady now, until the water stops streaming in, until we’ve risen several meters—it must be at least five meters, maybe ten.

The sluice gate in front of me opens, it creaks even more, as if it were in the process of rusting completely to pieces; now there’s yet another chamber and I will have to go through the whole process one more time.

The engine has been idling and, when I can finally sail out into the canal, I put it into gear. The water is greener here, maybe it’s because of the trees growing close together along the shore, the leaves reflected in the surface, or maybe because of the sea grass growing down there. A single blade has come loose and is floating on the surface and I must be on the alert for this sea grass. It can get into the backwash inlet, clog it, like hair in a drain.

I can’t see the bottom, but nonetheless it feels as if it were pressing towards me. The Arietta extends 1.35 meters below the waterline. The water level should be at least two meters in the canal now, but that also depends on how much the farmers in the area are draining from it. If the vegetables need water, the water level will be low, so I keep an eye on the water at all times, as I creep further and further inland.

An oncoming boat from time to time, otherwise there’s nothing to do, nothing to concentrate on, just this calm movement forward through this placid landscape. I miss the ocean, I miss the waves, the concentration they demand. Here it’s impossible to escape from myself.

Magnus, I know exactly when I lost you and you lost me and it took me by such surprise, a shock, even though I should have known beforehand. Yes, I should have seen it coming. Because you didn’t participate actively in the protest like the rest of us; more and more frequently you left us up there on the mountain and drove down to your valley, to the farm, to your parents. Didn’t you feel safe with us, were you frightened or were you just fed up—with the discussions, the songs, the warmth?

One evening when you came back you brought your father with you.

Daddy welcomed you, the way he welcomed everyone who came. In his large, dark-green parka, with a heavy sweater underneath, he looked larger than before; for the first time his name Bjørn, meaning bear, suited him.

He shook Sønstebø’s hand, greeted him, said it had been a long time, but that he didn’t blame him, although we all wondered about the absence of the people from Eidesdalen. We knew they had farms, they had animals but still… it would have strengthened the protest had they been here with us. But Daddy didn’t say anything about this and it was a conscious choice.

“So here you are,” Daddy said.

“Yes,” Sønstebø said.

“Come have a seat, have some coffee,” Daddy said.

“Thank you kindly,” Sønstebø said.

I went over to Magnus.

“You went to get him?”

“He wanted to come along.”

“Good. Finally.”

“He has something to say.”

It was only then that I noticed that there was something agitated about Magnus; his movements were sharp, his eyes alert.

We sat down with them by the fire and many people joined us. Sønstebø was treated like a guest of honor.

“Yes…” Sønstebø said finally. “It turns out… that… it seems that we, those of us in Eidesdalen, we think you should end this.”

“What?” Daddy said. “You don’t mean it?”

Sønstebø threw out his arms. “It’s an impressive set-up, all of this…” He waved around him to show that he meant the camp. “And we… we are very glad you’re doing this for us… but we think maybe it’s getting to be enough now. Yes, it’s enough. People should maybe start going home again, little by little.”

At first, Daddy didn’t say anything; several people around them murmured but he was completely silent.

“It’s not that we don’t appreciate everything,” Sønstebø continued, “and we think it’s good that the issue has been in the newspapers and that people in Oslo have been informed about what’s happening. But the way things have evolved, I think it best if we call it a day. Before there’s trouble.”

“Trouble? You don’t have to worry about that,” Daddy said.

“We will have to live with this for many years to come,” Sønstebø said.

“That’s precisely why it’s so important.”

“And we will receive revenue. Waterfall rights?” He turned to face Magnus.

“Waterfall rights revenues,” Magnus said.

“But you’ll lose everything else,” Daddy said.

“It’s just that… it’s enough now. We don’t want any trouble,” Sønstebø said.

“Are you frightened?” Daddy said.

“No. No. We’re not frightened.”

“The man who blew up the bridge is afraid,” Daddy hissed suddenly.

Sønstebø started, looked around him and laughed suddenly. “I was a shot firer, once upon a time, yes. You have a good memory. But I never blew up any bridge.”

He’s lying, I thought, you have to say something, Daddy, he’s lying. But Daddy sat in silence, leaned back a little, his eyes narrowed.

“I think you’ve misunderstood,” he said finally. “We’re not doing this for you.”

“No?”

“We’re doing it for all of us.”

“Yes. Of course. Yes—”

“For our children. For our grandchildren. The waterfalls are supposed to be eternal. Their destruction will be too.”

Sønstebø squirmed. “So you won’t leave?”

“No. We’re not leaving.”

Then Magnus took a step forward. He spoke loudly and a little too quickly. “The people of Ringfjorden are mobilizing, Bjørn.”

Daddy turned towards him. “And?”

“The construction workers are losing thousands of kroner every day the machinery isn’t running. That’s stirred up anger. These are ordinary people, you see, they’ve invested, they are counting on this development. Waited for it. And with every passing day, they are becoming angrier.”

“So much the better,” Daddy said.

“You cannot mean that.”

“More attention.”

“I don’t think you realize what you’ve started.”

“What I’ve started?”

“Yes. You.”

“I’m not the one who wants to develop the river, I’m not the one who sold the land, I’m not the one who arranged the sale of the waterfall rights. I’m not the one who’s married to the head of operations for Ringfallene.”

Mommy—again it was about her, again it was about the two of them. There was no end to it. A break-up lasts forever.

“We’re going to have to live with this for many years to come,” Sønstebø said again. “Enough bridges have been blown up.”

He looked at me as he said it.

After that the camp changed, the singing died out, the laughter as well.

We just waited.

Two days later they came, when we’d been up there for twenty-one days.

It was in the evening and the first thing we saw was a gleam of light above the mountain, then we heard the sound of tires against the wet road.

A convoy—we couldn’t see the end of it, that’s how many there were. They parked in a line along the roadside, the doors opened and men poured out, every single car was full, four or five in each one, some people also came on motorcycles and one even came on a tractor.

They gathered into a group and walked towards the camp. We had gotten to our feet, people came out of their tents, stopped their cooking, hushed the children, left the guitars in their cases, shoved pipes into the pockets of parkas.

They looked like us, we looked like them; I recognized farmers, fishermen, colleagues of Svein at the plant, familiar faces, people I associated with the place where I grew up, associated with security, predictability, men whom I’d perhaps laughed at a little—for their taciturn sturdiness, their lack of knowledge, of education—but also respected, for the job they did, the investment, the ability to take pleasure in the life they had been allotted. First and foremost, however, these were men I had never thought about much, just taken for granted—they were there, they hauled the fish out of the ocean, harvested grain, picked apples, day in and day out, in the sun, in the wind, in the rain.

They had brought signs and banners, all of them hand-painted, like ours, but the message was different.

We moved towards the end of the road and they followed suit, approached us from all directions like magnets towards a pole.

A man stepped forward—it was Svein. He had a megaphone in his hand and a thick wool cap pulled down over his ears, he who usually wore a hat. He lifted the megaphone to his mouth and looked around, his gaze swept over me, I was sure he saw me, but it didn’t have any effect on him.

“We, the citizens of Ringfjorden municipality,” he said, “hereby present you with the following ultimatum.”

He took out a piece of paper and started to read out loud: “We demand that the camp be taken down by midnight tonight, so the work on the access road in connection with the development approved by parliamentary resolution can continue without further delay.”

Magnus had come up beside me. He took hold of my hand.

Svein continued: “If you don’t voluntarily clear the road by the above-stated deadline, anything could happen. I repeat: anything could happen.”

Then he lowered the megaphone and put away the piece of paper and cheers broke out on his side of the road. The men shouted, raising their firsts in the air.

Magnus squeezed my hand, whispering quietly, “It’s enough now, Signe, you see that, it’s enough now.”

“We can take more than this,” I said.

But then he dropped my hand and walked towards our tent.

I was left standing alone. I saw Daddy leaning his head towards Lars and a couple of the others; they were speaking quietly together. I approached them. Daddy’s voice was an intense whisper.

“I’m staying here till they have to carry me away.”

“No,” Lars said. “You see them. What they are willing to do. This is over now.”

Meanwhile a disturbance had arisen among the people from Ringfjorden; several of them were screaming and shouting and now they started to approach us, slowly, a huge, crawling animal, and I jumped at the sight of knives gleaming.

They drew their knives on us.

Svein walked forward, positioned himself between us and them, tried to restrain them, but they kept shouting and clenching their knives in their fists.

“Damn Oslo hippies, go home!”

Svein spoke more loudly, asked them to calm down, turned towards Daddy and Lars.

“Give us an answer, then we’ll leave right away and let you pack up in peace.”

Lars and Daddy had a hushed, intense discussion. Daddy sullen, furious. “No. They’re not going to fucking win this.”

But Lars spread his arms out before him.

“There are children here. Anger like this… Nothing good can come from it.”

The others nodded. Daddy was the only one who opposed them and I walked over to him and stood beside him.

“If we leave, we lose.”

Daddy started.

“Signe, no. You have to leave.”

“But you’re staying, aren’t you?”

Daddy’s voice became more high-pitched: “You and Magnus are going to drive down right now, you understand?”

Then Lars grinned. “So you want to protect your own daughter, while the others’ daughters don’t matter so much?”

I didn’t hear Daddy’s reply, but as I walked towards the tent, towards Magnus, I could feel the heat rushing to my cheeks. Daddy didn’t take me seriously—I was still a child for him, a little girl, it infuriated me and at the same time I was embarrassed for his sake, because I saw Daddy the way Lars had seen him, someone who had said and done everything right, by the book, but who, when it came right down to it, with a knife against his throat, was just as irrational and selfish as everyone else. Daddy wanted to be like Lars, but would never be able to fill his shoes.

I approached the tent. It was starting to get dark and I stumbled on the uneven ground, but managed to recover my balance at the last moment. At the same time I heard steps behind me and somebody calling my name.

She jogged towards me. At first I didn’t recognize her. In her ski pants and parka she almost looked like a young boy and she moved with the same lightness as before, as if she weren’t a day older.

It was Mom.

Mom and Svein, Svein and Mom, of course she’d come up with him. Else was surely looking after the little boys, my half-brothers whom I barely knew, and Mom had come here to support Svein, support the village and emphasize which side she was on, the hotel’s side, but first and foremost, her new little family’s side. Unnecessary, I thought, so horribly unnecessary, you didn’t need to do it, we know it already, we know where you stand, what you want, how you make your money and how you’ve planned to ensure your children’s futures. Why did you want to come here, to demonstrate it yet again, in yet another manner, why did you want yet again to dissociate yourself from me and everything that’s mine, from what you and Daddy once had?

I stopped. I wanted to scream but couldn’t, because tears would also come with the scream, I could feel it now, the fierceness with which they were rising, so I just stood there like that, completely silent, and waited for what she was going to say, how she would yet again declare her loyalties, like rubbing salt in a wound.

But she said none of this.

“My dear child…” She took a step towards me. “My dear, you’re dirty.”

I swallowed; it was impossible to hold back the tears, because I was dirty and Mom saw it and, even though she said nothing more than this, I suddenly knew what she really wanted to say: come home with me and take a bath, come home with me. I’ll draw a bath for you, all the way to the rim of the tub, fill the tub with scalding-hot water and bubble bath, bubbles that smell clean, you can help yourself, take as much as you want, and let me wash your hair, with Timotei shampoo, massage it into your scalp for a long time and scrub your back, with the hard brush that removes dead skin cells and makes you soft as a baby, and let me lift you up and wrap you in the largest, cleanest towel I have and rub you down until you’re dry and warm and your skin is burning, and let me lend you my bathrobe, the big, thick one, and stay with you all the time, because this time I’m not going to leave you to go scream at your father, I’m not going to forget about you until the bathwater turns cold. This time I will stay with you until you fall asleep.

I could have gone with her, now, immediately, gotten into her clean, warm car with an engine that ran more quietly than any other car’s and driven to the hotel, to the wing, driven home.

I drew a breath.

No.

No.

She wanted to bribe me, a double betrayal, she came here to flag her side, show everyone where her loyalties were, maybe even lead them, and simultaneously, she wanted to bribe me. Were there no limits?

I turned away from her, walked away as quickly as I could, towards Magnus and the tent, hoping my back was enough of a rejection, but she followed me.

“Wait, Signe, stop!”

Now Magnus noticed her, he stopped working; the tent was already halfway down.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “The tent stays up.”

But he just looked at Mom behind me. “Iris?”

Mom came all the way over to us, raised her arms towards me, as if she wanted to hug me, but I crossed my own.

“Sweetie,” she said. “I wish you could understand my thinking. That it’s you and the boys I’m thinking about.”

“You’re thinking about me?” I so wanted my voice to be calm but could hear how it trembled. “How can you be thinking about me when you’re doing something like this?”

Then she turned towards Magnus. “I told you it would be like this.”

“What!” I said. “Have you talked about this? Have you talked about me?”

“We care about you, Signe,” Mom said.

We?

“What is this?” I asked and noticed how my voice came back. “A sewing club where you discuss Signe’s well-being?”

I looked back and forth from one to the other, unable to comprehend the bond between them. “I thought this was about the falls,” I said. “About Eidesdalen?”

Magnus and Mom held each other’s gazes. They stood there so calmly, so balanced, and almost simultaneously they turned towards me and stared at me with the same amazement I had previously seen on Magnus’s face. All at once I felt stupid—with all my strong words, my loud voice—and like an outsider. The two of them were the same, I was completely different and this difference they tried to understand, with the best intentions, even though they would never get it. Because the pragmatic human being doesn’t understand passion.

“I don’t think you should be up here, especially not now,” Mommy said.

I turned to face Magnus and now I no longer managed to hold back the tears. He had told her.

“I’m staying,” I say to Magnus. “Do you understand—put down the damn tent peg, I’m staying up here.”

Magnus threw down what he was holding in his hands, reached out for me with them; whether he was despondent or wanted to make peace, I didn’t know, but I didn’t care either. I just wanted to escape the sight of him, his calm demeanor, escape hearing any more of that calm voice. But it wasn’t over, I still couldn’t get away, because he had even more to say.

“Svein has arranged a job for me, Signe. I wanted to tell you before, but then all of this happened. Your mother and Svein want to hire me at Ringfallene, they need engineers and we can move back. The salary is much better than what I could hope for anywhere else. You won’t need to work, we’ll be able to afford to take care of the child, you can write, sail, do the things you love, we can live here and it will be a good life, Signe. A good life.”

This was what he had always wanted, this was what he had imagined, a house by the water, a bench on the mountainside, where we would sit when we were old and look at the view. A garden with a wharf where Blue could be docked. I could go out fishing, he could take care of the garden, even spend time in the kitchen on the odd Sunday to prepare food for a party the guests would praise him for, but first and foremost he had imagined the trip he would make every day to and from this house, to and fro. The suit he would wear—the suit, the symbol of stability, respectability—maybe even a briefcase, the office where he would sit, the secretary he would have eventually, the carbon paper, the file cabinet, the promotion, the reassuring scent of ink, freshly brewed coffee, and the paycheck he would receive every single month—a piece of paper, tangible proof of his proficiency, which he would put into the bank where the money would grow, so that eventually he could buy a larger house by the fjord, a nicer car, matching floor lamps for the living room, winter clothes for the children, a girl and a boy.

A wholly ordinary, relatively good life was what he wanted. A life where there weren’t too many sharp edges, not too much noise, too much of everything that was me.

How would life have been if I had given in on that day? If I had embraced his dream? Would it still be Magnus and me? Would we have acquired the house by the fjord? The children? The bench? Would it have been a good life, for me, too?

But I embraced neither him nor his dream.

I ran.

I ran, away from Mommy and Magnus, Daddy, Lars and Svein, I passed the protestors, who shouted even more insults at me, a girl they’d seen grow up in the village, someone who had been one of them.

But none of them attacked me; they let me run.

I ran down the access road, past all the parked cars—there had to be more than a hundred, with five men in each, five hundred men had come up the mountain to take us down.

They’d gotten rid of me.

I ran, I walked, I ran some more.

It wasn’t until I reached the wharf that I stopped, inhaled the damp air from the fjord, the smell of salt water. But it didn’t help.