The End of the Ocean

Chapter 3 SIGNE

I should fix something that needs fixing. On a boat there is always something to be taken care of, to be oiled, coiled, sealed, cleaned or secured. On a boat you never have time off. Or I should pay a visit to the hotel, say hello to my half-brothers. I should, I’ve hardly seen them since they took over the hotel. But all I do is sit here in the saloon drinking tea, unable to move. I have been home, here in Ringfjorden, for a full twenty-four hours now, and all I do is sit here listening.

The rat-a-tat-tat of the helicopters—the sound has been there since this morning, back and forth over the mountain, from the glacier to the defunct fish-landing station and back. The station has been reopened for this new business: there the ice is chopped and packaged before being shipped out.

The rat-a-tat-tat sound rises and falls, no longer a sound, something more physical, something lodged inside me. The vibrations shake the water of the fjord, the deck, and send shivers down my spine.

Maybe people in the village complain about this, maybe they write to the local newspaper, whining letters to the editor. Because they must have something to say, they must have some kind of opinion? I haven’t spoken to anyone yet, haven’t asked, but now I get up and go to the store.

I nod to the woman at the cash register, who doesn’t appear to recognize me. And I don’t remember her face either. I am one of the few people who left the village, one of the few who chose another life. Signe Hauger, the journalist, the author, the professional activist—people here have perhaps not read anything by me, but they have certainly heard about me. At least they’ve heard the gossip, even though that was many years ago, when I chained myself to a barricade in protest and was put in jail.

But she doesn’t recognize me, no, because she nods back indifferently. I should ask her what she thinks about Blåfonna, about the helicopters. Most people like sharing their personal opinions. Perhaps I can engage her in some idle chatter; it’s a strange expression idle chatter, as if small talk required no effort whatsoever. I don’t have the strength for this kind of social banter, whether I know the other person or not. But today I’m going to ask about something specific, so that’s different. All the same, I can’t bring myself to walk straight up to her; that would seem strange, unnatural. I decide instead to wait until I pay for my groceries.

I start picking out the things I need: bread, juice, dishwashing liquid, canned goods, tea. As I’m doing so, the bell above the door jingles faintly. The door opens and two elderly women enter.

They engage in some chatter, though it’s more zealous than idle. They carry on as if they were being paid for it, but they’re not talking about the helicopters or about the ice, apparently nobody is talking about Blåfonna. It takes me a while to realize who the women are; their voices give them away. We went to school together and they sound astonishingly similar to how they were when they were girls, the rising and falling intonations, the laughter.

I step out from behind the shelf—not saying hello would be foolish and maybe they know something about the glacier, maybe they actually care—but a word, a name, a flood of words causes me to stop.

Magnus.

They’ve started talking about him, and one of them turns out to be his sister-in-law. He has moved to France, she says with obvious envy, he only comes home for board meetings, is apparently not planning to step down as chairman of the Ringfallene Company yet. He loves that job, but is otherwise enjoying his retirement down there, playing golf and attending wine-tasting events. It is apparently wonderful, she actually uses that word, wonderful, and I stay put behind the shelf.

Wonderful. Yes indeed, I can imagine. I saw him once a few years back, from across the street in Bergen, he was on his way to a meeting, no doubt, he was wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase and an all-weather jacket, the standard uniform of Norwegian, adult businessmen. He didn’t see me, but I had time to study him. A life of plenty had made a visible impact on him—the largest part of his body was his stomach. He had turned out like many others from our generation. An upholstered body in an upholstered existence, in our wonderful new world.

I wait until they have finished chatting, wonder whether they will say anything more about him, but now they seem to be talking about their own grandchildren, trying subtly to outdo one another with stories of these young people’s achievements and the closeness of their bond, how often they see them and not least how much their adult children rely on them, the grandmothers, to keep the wheels of daily life turning smoothly. And they don’t stop—one can apparently talk about grandchildren indefinitely. I sneak away from my basket, towards the door and open it carefully so the bell won’t make too much noise.

I know that I love you, I used to say.

I love you, Magnus used to reply.

“Is the word love an absolute or does it have degrees?” I asked once.

We were lying close together in bed, as our heartbeats slowly calmed. I think we were at his place, we usually were.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Are there degrees of love or is the word itself so strong that it’s always absolute, always one hundred per cent?”

“You are at any rate the only person who can turn language’s most emotional word into something theoretical,” he smiled, stroking my arm.

“But if there are degrees,” I said, “wouldn’t the verb know make it stronger? Isn’t my sentence actually stronger than yours, when I say that I know?”

“You mean that you love me more than I love you?”

“Yes. I think maybe that’s true,” I said, and snuggled up against him even closer.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Know. It adds a certainty to the expression that makes it stronger.”

“You want me to take this seriously?”

“I want you to take everything I say seriously.”

“Fine. Then I may as well say that it opens up room for doubt. The words I know allow for the possibility that a time, a period, a moment may arrive when you actually no longer know. And you also imply the opposite… that the state of I don’t know exists. And the downgraded I believe. While my version, on the other hand…”

“Yes, let’s hear about your version, my beloved Magnus.”

“Three simple words, Signe. Three words that are a cliché. But also the truest, because I am not looking forward, or backwards or towards anything else but us.”

“But you.”

“What?”

“Anything else but you. You are not referring to anything but your own feelings,” I said.

“Fine,” he said.

“So you’re saying that I’m qualifying my feelings?”

“I’m saying that I love you.”

“Is that different from thinking it? You think you love me.”

“Right now I think you wear me out.”

“Words. Are. Important.”

“Words. Are. Important. For. You.”

“I am going to be a journalist,” I said, and smiled. “So you’ll have to learn how to live with it.”

“You weren’t planning to become a journalist when I chose you.”

“It was in the cards, though.”

“Maybe it was.”

“And by the way, were you the one who chose me? Does the man choose the woman? The positive force choosing the negative? I always thought I was the one who chose you.”

“Dear de Beauvoir. I give up. You chose me.”

“Yes. I chose you.”

“Can we go to sleep now?”

“Yes. Good night,” I said.

“I love you,” he said.

When I get back from the store, the helicopters are silent, but another sound has taken over. The sound of loading. A guy wearing overalls is driving a forklift back and forth from the fish-landing station to a small cargo ship in the harbor. Containers of ice are stacked on European pallets, and he lowers them on board. The forklift moves with careless, sharp movements; a solid banging sound can be heard when they strike the inside of the ship and disappear into the cargo hold.

Then there is silence, the forklift is parked beside the wall by the fish-landing station, everyone leaves the harbor and tomorrow the skipper will come, start the engine, take the ice, my ice, our ice, transport it south, to other countries, to people who have never seen a glacier, never held snow between their hands, and there it will melt in glasses, in drinks, there it will be destroyed.

Magnus doesn’t need ice, he has his swimming pool and his plump wife Trine. She was already around when they were engineering students, I remember. I wonder if he fell for her already there and then, maybe even before we broke up. No doubt he has grandchildren who come to visit. He doesn’t need ice cubes, probably only drinks red wine, Bordeaux, burgundy, Beaujolais, succulent drops with a fruity hint of plum. But nonetheless, he has signed off on this.

The cargo ship bobs in the water. The ice lies within; tomorrow it will be shipped away, tomorrow it will disappear.

Magnus is behind it; he doesn’t have to be, yet he is, he is behind it and nobody cares.

I’m the only one who cares.

The cargo ship is right over there, no one is guarding it.

Magnus is responsible and I am alone in this—but I am the only one who can destroy it.

I am nearly invisible—a small, gray woman wearing a knitted cap covered with fuzz balls, I am old, old as stone, like Blåfonna.

I can’t destroy everything, but I can destroy this.

I can’t shout about everything, but I can shout about this.

I can dump the ice in the ocean and disappear.