The Half Brother: A Novel by Lars Saabye Christensen Page B

would fire off shots and windows were broken. But Vera never woke from her sleep.
    The Old One poured another round. Boletta drained her glass immediately. “I should never have let her go up there alone,” she mumbled. “What do you mean?” “I should have gone with her.” The Old One leaned closer so that her gray hair fell down over her face. She slowly pushed it away. “There weren’t any others up there? With her?” Boletta shook her head. “With her? What do you mean?” “You know perfectly well what I mean!” Boletta was on the point of shouting, but she stopped herself. “She was alone,” she said quietly. “But there could have been someone there before you arrived?” Boletta glanced at her mother. “Tomorrow we’re going to the hairdresser’s,” she suddenly announced. “All three of us.” The Old One giggled. “Speak for yourself. The two of you can go to the hairdresser’s if you want. But I’m not coming.” Boletta sighed. “Your hair is far too long. But just go on looking like a tramp. If that’s what you really want.” The Old One got worked up now. “I refuse to be dressed up like a dog’s dinner just because it’s the end of the war.” “And you’re shedding like a cat!” “Vera can put up my hair. When King Haakon comes home!”
    A thump against the window made them start yet again. The two of them were brittle and jumpy. Someone was standing outside throwing stones at the window. The Old One put down her glass on the bedside table, went over and opened the window a fraction. It was just some boys from the block. They had boutonnieres and Norwegian flags in their hands. They were cocky and friendly and invulnerable. They were looking for Vera. But the Old One had already raised a cautionary hand. “Vera isn’t too well,” she told them. “Besides, you’ve chosen the wrong window. Unless it’s me you want to go out with.”
    The boys down below laughed, and then ran on to other windows, other girls. Here and there between the tenements across the road bonfires burned — bonfires of blackout blinds. People came with them in their arms and threw them into the flames; the black smoke rose into the chill skies and stood like pillars to the left and to the right, and the smell was luscious, almost sweet, filled as it was with the heavy scent of new-flowering lilac. The evening sun made the asphalt glow, as if the whole town had been hammered from soft copper. And along Church Road there marched a battalion of young men in sportswear; they had guns over their shoulders and they were singing. Where had all these people come from? The Old One wondered at it all. And she thought to herself, War is silent, peace is loud.
    She shut the window and sat down by the bed again. “This is my second world war,” she sighed. “And it can be the last.” The Old One knocked three times on the wood of the bedpost. Boletta changed the cloth on Vera’s breast and gingerly lifted the nightgown to see if more blood had appeared, but the towels were still white and dry. “I just don’t understand how she hurt herself like this,” the Old One breathed. “She must have fallen,” Boletta said quickly. “Yes. You’re right in what you say. That she’s fallen.” Boletta leaned close, and when she spoke her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “Do you really think there could have been someone else there?” The Old One drank in the scent of the bottle and then looked away. “No, for who would it have been? It was you who said she was alone.”
    They talked thus, their voices low and anxious, back and forth, our great-grandmother and our grandmother, each with their glass of Malaga. And I somehow believe they never quite managed to get rid of the odor of that dark, sweet wine, and that when many years later I was allowed to lie there, either because I’d had a nightmare or else was pretending that I wasn’t well, I always breathed as deeply as I could and at once my head