Chapter 19
’Carry me home to
Heaven’
Her real name was not Lillemor (which literally means Little Mother).
Lillemor was a pet name given to her when she was a little girl. I have never
heard her be called anything but Lillemor. If I was tortured to say her real
first name, I couldn’t do it. I simply do not know.
I dress in my dark suit and a white shirt, put on a grey necktie with
black stars which I use at funerals, brush my shoes, and drive to the railway
station at Rygge.
I enter the 10.54 train to Oslo. The ride takes a little less than an
hour. I go to eat lunch at my publishing company, Forlaget Oktober, located in
Kristian Augusts gate in central Oslo. Oktober’s authors have a standing
invitation to come to lunch in the canteen. Lunch is very informal, and typical
Norwegian. Staff and visiting authors sit down at a long table, and we all make
our own open-faced sandwiches. There is no beer or wine served, just orange
juice and water.
I sit
alongside my editor, Cis-Doris Andreassen. Not for all the money in the world
would I tell her about my writing in English.
If she,
somehow, had heard a rumour about it, I would tell her that an author has to
write what he has to write, in a language that suits the project. She would have
respected my decision. She is very respectful. But she would have urged me to
stop before I waste to much time and energy on at book that can not be printed
by Oktober, or any other Norwegian publisher, and for which I’ll earn absolutely
no money.
I would have answered that even if I live
from my writing and need money, I have had to write this book for publication on
the web, for free. I needed an outlet for my thoughts. I needed to write in a
language which gives me resistance, in which words do not come too easily. I
needed English like...like?...like a patient short of air needs oxygen.
No, to say that would have sounded too
dramatic. I find no good metaphor. Good luck for me that my book is a secret and
that we will have no conversation about it.
Present
at the lunch is author Per Petterson. He has had great international success
lately. His novel ”Out Stealing Horses” has done very well in Great Britain and
the USA, and won him literary prizes. Do I envy him? Of course I do, and he
knows that I do. All Oktober’s authors, and all other Norwegian authors, envy
Per. But he is such a good, modest and hard-working fellow that we welcome his
success and think he deserves it.
The last
thing we would talk about at the lunch table, Per and I, is how he has hit the
international book market. He would blush if I mentioned it. He tells that he
has a new novel ready for publication in the autumn. I congratulate him.
I know I’ll have no new novel ready for
this year or next year, for years, maybe. But I
write – I do my typing - and that is the most important thing for a
writer. Come rain, come shine. I write.
From
Oktober I take a taxi and tell the driver we are going to the east of the city,
to Østre krematorium (Eastern Crematorium).
Traffic
is slow. I think about Lillemor who is dead. She was my father’s half sister,
one of his five half sisters. He also had two half brothers. What I remember
best of Lillemor is a memory from childhood, from a Christmas party when I was
five or six years old. Every Boxing Day (”2. juledag”) the big family on my
father’s side gathered at my grandmother’s house at Haslum near Oslo. For
reasons that I’ll explain later on I did not know my cousins very well. They
were many, and I loved meeting them. But upon first sight of the whole bunch on
this particular Boxing Day I was a bit scared.
We, the
children, were supposed to walk around the Christmas tree, which was very big
and glittering, and sing Christmas carols. We all lined up. But I did not know
whose hands I should put mine in.
Then my
blonde aunt Lillemor came forward and put my right hand firmly into the hand of
her daughter, my beautiful fair-haired cousin Tonje. My left hand Lillemor put
into the hand of my beautiful brown-haired cousin Lillegull (Little Gold, or
Little Golden One – it was and is a family fond of
pet names and sobriquets).
We, the ring of children, were standing still. I did not understand why
we did not start marching. All of a sudden something happened that almost
stopped my little heart.
The
tree moved.
First it
turned slowly around, then it moved faster.
And the tree started
to play.
It was a
familiar Christmas song, ”Glade jul, hellige jul” (”Happy Christmas, holy
Christmas”).
The
tree’s movement and music was too much for me. I screamed in panic. I wept.
Aunt
Lillemor comforted me, and said repeatedly that there was no danger. She told me
that the Christmas tree was supposed to move around and play ”Glade jul”. This
was perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.
I wiped
away my tears. Finally the tree stopped, and so did the music. I marched
heroically along with a good grip of
the hands of my cousins. But I did not sing. My voice was gone, my mouth dry.
Afterwards my father gave me an explanation of the mystery of the tree.
My father’s mother, my grandmother Frida, was German. From Germany she had
imported a peculiar Christmas tree stand (”juletrefot”). The stand was
mechanical and could be wound up like a clock. When a lock was released, the
device started to move, and a musical box (”spilledåse”)inside
the stand started to play.
During Christmases to come I was not afraid of the moving and playing
tree. But I never liked it very much.
I remember from a late Boxing Day evening
Lillemor sitting on the veranda at Haslum with her husband Leif and my
mother Fredy, the three of them smoking cigarettes. The veranda of the big
house, which had once been a farmhouse, was dimly lit. I was standing outside in
the darkness to cool off after a friendly fight with my Swedish cousin
Anders.The red lights of the cigarettes illuminated the faces of the smokers. I
thought about how pretty my aunt Lillemor looked, and of course about how pretty
my mother looked.
On the veranda my father, called Fred by the family, stood by himself,
aloof as he sometimes was when visiting my grandmother, smoking his pipe.
By that time, when I was nine or ten, I had learned that my aunts and
uncles were not his full sisters and brothers, but half sisters and brothers.
Later, much later, I learned that my father was born out of wedlock, as
an illegitimate child, a by-blow. His mother Frida Weidner had, when very young,
met my grandfather Johan Fredrik Michelet (having the same name as my father
got) when he was a student of engineering in Germany. The relationship between
the two of them resulted in pregnancy. Pregnant Frida came to Norway to meet
with Johan Fredrik. Something went terribly wrong.
The
story I have heard from my mother is that he was not able to cope with the
situation, that he escaped, that he went off. And I know for sure that he
emigrated to America. First he was in North America, then he moved on to
Argentine, where he live for almost sixty years until his death in 1964. He
worked as an engineer constructing hydro electric power stations in the Andes
Mountains. Then he became a cattle farmer on the
pampa. He never came back to Norway.
He never saw my father. There was no contact between them.
Left
alone in what was for her a foreign country, Frida gave birth to my father. This
happened in 1905. Lonely and penniless she could not take care of him. He was
placed on a farm in the interior of Østfold. He came to good people, a childless
couple who treated him well.
Frida
took up work in a shop in Kristiania (today Oslo). She met the man who was to
become her husband, the well-to-do timber merchant Bernt Paulsen. They married,
settled at Haslum and got seven children.
I sit in
the taxi, driven by a Pakistani like so many Oslo taxis, and think about the
long lapse of time since my father died. It happened 24 years ago, when he was
79.
His
little sister Lillemor has died now, so incredibly many years later.
How
come? I have to do a calculation. Born in 1919 Lillemor was 14 years younger
than my father, and she became 10 years older than him.
We
arrive at Østre krematorium. I see no familiar faces in the small crowd that has
gathered on the stairs outside. I check the notice on the bulletin board by the
entrance door. It says that Gerd Burum is to be buried at 13.30 hours, which is
five minutes from now.
So Gerd
it was, my aunt Lillemor’s Christian name, the one she was given when baptized.
I go
inside and see some of my cousins. I sit down besides Håkon, who has lived in
Sweden his whole life and been an actor there. I ask him if his mother, my aunt
Totten, is present at the funeral. She is not. Now 92 years old she is the
oldest of the three surviving of my aunts and uncles. I guess she has found the
travel from Sweden to Oslo be too fatiguing.
My
father’s surviving half brother Klemet lives near Seattle in the USA.
But my father’s youngest half sister, Lilletulla, who lives in Vestfold
on the Oslo Fjord, is present and sits on the same bench as I do. I greet her
and cannot stop looking at her. For me it is so curious to sit with my father’s
sister, he being so long gone, and she being here alive. At 87 years of age
Lilletulla seems to be in very good shape. I see in her face some of the facial
features of my father, especially the sharp nose.
Lilletulla and I met at a family party
this winter. As I have already written, I do not see much of my cousins. The
family party at my cousin Vensen’s farm at Jevnaker was a rare occasion. I liked
it very much. Aunt Lilletulla told me a story about my father: He was often
invited to Haslum. But his half sisters and half brothers were not told who he
really was. Lilletulla thought of him as a handsome young friend of the family
and adored him. She was sixteen years old when she was told that Fred was her
half brother. He was then 32 years old.
She said
to me at the party that she was still angry with her mother and father for not
telling her the truth about her half brother before she was sixteen. Why was my
father’s existence such a family taboo?
My aunt
Lillemor’s body is in a white coffin surrounded by a lot of white flowers. I had
expected that there would be many flowers at the funeral. For many years she and
Leif were the owners of three florist’s shops in Oslo. When they sold the flower
shops, she started working as a switchboard operator at Tiedemann’s tobacco
factory.
It is to
be a Christian burial. We are waiting for the priest to appear.
(I know
that in English the word ”priest” is mostly used as a designation for Catholic
clergymen. But since the word in English is very similar to the word in
Norwegian, ”prest”, I have taken the liberty to use ”priest” sometimes when I
describe Protestant clergy.)
Music is played from a record. It is
”Memory” by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I see the back of my cousin Tonje who is
sitting on the front bench. She was it who told me on the phone that her mother
had died. She said it was not such a tragic affair, considering how old her
mother became.
Last
time I was at Østre krematorium – a little less than a year ago - the funeral
was a heartbreaking event to me and many others. My longtime friend Tron Øgrim,
writer and lecturer, had died of a stroke at only 59 years of age. Tron was a
leftist political guru for many of my generation, and for a lot of young people.
At his funeral the premises were so crowded that many had to stand on the
outside. I gave a short commemorative speech at Tron’s funeral, which was not a
Christian burial. He was an atheist like me.
When my
mother died in 1972, my father and I arranged for her to have a Christian
burial. When he died in 1984, I – the only child – arranged for him, according
to his wish, to have the same sort of a burial as my mother.
On both
occasions I felt that the words of the clergymen about eternal life were not
true to me. But I said nothing to the parsons afterwards.
At Østre
krematorium a young clergywoman enters.
A hymn
is sung. The old people in the crowd sing along. The younger people mumble or
hum, or keep quiet. I, even if I am not young, am amongst the quiet.
The
young female priest delivers a sermon of the traditional kind; the creed, the
prayers, the blessing.
I do not
know if many, or any, of my cousins are beleivers. We have never spoken about
religious matters.
Whatever we are, we follow the custom and the ritual, out of respect for
the dead, for Lillemor.
The parson speaks about Lillemor’s life, presenting information she has
been given by my cousin Tonje and her younger brother Nils.
She says that Lillemor was one of eight
children. This makes me glad because it includes my father in the crowd of
children.
We sing another hymn:
inntil jeg salig ender i himlens hjem!
So take my hands and
lead me on
until I saved end up in Heaven’s home!
In the
printed funeral programme no name of the hymn is given. I do not remember the
name of the hymn, which is very popular at Norwegian Christian burials. I call
it ”Carry me home to Heaven”.
Do any of my cousins really believe that Lillemor is to be carried home
to Heaven?
I don’t know, and I shall not ask. My slogan of the day is: Let everyone
keep their convictions. Let them believe if it makes them happy.
The atmosphere is not blissful. It is an atmosphere of sobriety.
We all rise to our feet.
The young clergywoman throws earth on the coffin and says the ceremonial
words about coming of the earth and becoming earth, and the resurrection from
earth.
Music is played. It is a lyrical melody by Norwegian composer Edvard
Grieg, ”Ved Rondane” (At Rondane Mountains).
We go to the coffin and greet the dead in silence.
Then we leave Østre krematorium.
”Seter” means dairy farm, but is also a popular name suffix for lodges in
the forests and hills around Oslo, the most famous being the Viking style
Frognerseteren near Holmenkollen. Østmarkseteren was built in 1926 as a
cafeteria serving cross-country skiers in wintertime and walkers and bathers in
the nearby Ulsrudvannet (Ulsrud Lake) in summertime.
During
the German occupation a big bunker was constructed in the granite ground
underneath the timber buildings of Østmarkseteren. What purpose the bunker had I
have never found out. Maybe it was to be a refuge for German officers in the
case of an Allied attack on Oslo, a kind of Wolfschanze in the woods.
As an
eager skier I often visited Østmarkseteren in the 1960’es to have a drink of hot
blackcurrant toddy in the cafeteria.
At the end of the 1960’es the cafeteria
was modernized to become a restaurant with banqueting rooms. The place is well
kept and much used for weddings, birthday celebrations and after-funeral
arrangements. It is renowned for its good wine cellar.
We, the guests from the funeral, all sit
down in one of the banqueting rooms. It is a Norwegian saying that blood is
thicker than water, meaning that family ties are strong. And strong they are
also in my family which I do not meet often. I really like to be with my
cousins. We talk about family matters and memories. We tell each other that we
should not only meet at funerals, but find other occasions.
We have
buried an old aunt. The next time we meet at at funeral, it may not be to bid
farewell to an aunt, but to one of our own generation. We, the cousins, are not
old people yet, but we have started to grow old. The hair or beard of many of us
has become gray. My Swedish cousin Anders passed away at only 50 years of age.
Death may hit any of us. I have had my diseases of the heart and the prostate,
of which I have spoken in public. I do not know if any of my cousins have had
similar problems. At the table we do not talk about our own health.
Our
generation’s life expectancy may not be as long as that of our old aunts. The
aunts grew up in the lean 1930’es. During the war years they had scanty fare;
five years of an involuntary slimming
cure. After the war there was a strict rationing of sugar and other foodstuffs.
British and American cigarettes were status symbols.
We of my
generation grew up in the relative poverty of postwar Norway. But then Norway
became rich from the oil of the North Sea, and we started to live fatter, and
had unlimited access to foreign cigarettes and French brandy and Scotch whisky,
and champagne. Our lifestyle was not as healthy as that of the aunts.
At
Østmarkseteren we all eat a lot of sandwhiches, danishes and big pieces of layer
cake, or cream gateau. The wine cellar is not opened for the occasion. We drink
coffee and mineral water, following the custom of Norwegian after-funeral
arrangements.
I tell a
story from a visit I paid to Høyanger a few years ago. Høyanger is an industrial
site on the Sogne Fjord in Western Norway, known for its aluminium factory, one
of the oldest in Norway. I was invited by the local trade unions as a speaker on
May 1st, and spoke strongly against the closure of the aluminium factory. I was
shown the melting furnaces which the owner, the big aluminium corporation Norsk
Hydro, threatened to shut down. (The old factory at Høyanger is still operating,
due to the tremendous development of industrial production in China, which has
increased the demand on the world market of aluminium from Norway.)
At
Høyanger I was also shown the summer vacation home of the workers. There the
Chemical Worker’s Trade Union had kept a book, a kind of ledger (”protokoll”),
from 1933 as a souvenir of the hard times. In 1933 a summer camp for working
class girls was arranged at the vacation home. It was important that the girls
were well fed, so that their weight would go up during the stay. In the book
accurate record was made of the weight increase of every girl.
Today, if such a record should be made at a summer camp for girls, it
would be of the weight reduction of every girl. Times are changing.
On the train I meet a friend, Per Mathias Høgmo, who was the successful
coach of the Norwegian national female football team which won a gold medal at
the Olympic Games in Sydney in the year 2000, beating the US team 2-1 in the
finals. He is now working as a manager of top football at Norges Fotballforbund
(The Norwegian Football Association).
We discuss football. It is relaxing, and distracting my mind form the
memory of funerals. We also discuss Labour Party politics – he is a party member
– and religion. I tell him I’m going to Trefoldighetskirken on May 1st to defend
my atheist point of view, and it makes us smile.The journey goes quickly.
When I drive by the stone church in Rygge, I stop for a couple of minutes
to meditate about eternity. For 839 years people have met in this church to pray
for salvation and bury their dead. If the stones in the walls could tell, they
would tell about the belief people have had during all those years; that the
souls of their beloved would be carried home to Heaven.
”I’m sorry, old church,” I say, ”that I have no faith and cannot believe
in eternal life.”
”The faithless are welcome inside me,” answers the church. ”It is here
they can be saved.”
”I know that much,” I say. ”But I am like the marten. I’m not easily
trapped.”
But what I now tell the church is bull. A winter several years a go I
went skiing on the snowcovered fields of a big farm in the neighbourhood called Evje. In a cluster
of oaks I stumbled upon a device which I had never seen before. It was an open
wooden box with a a big, rusty scissor
inside, the kind used to trap bears and foxes. From the box came the
rancid smell of rotten fish, and I noticed a bundle of dead fishes. I couldn’t
figure out what the trap was meant to trap. Then I saw some pieces of black fur,
and realized it was a marten trap and that a marten had recently been trapped in
it.
What a shame, I thought, that no sooner has the marten appeared in this
part of the country, then somebody starts trapping it. I wondered if such a trap
was legal, or if I should report it to the police. I wanted to rip the trap
apart, but did not dare. What if the scissor suddenly snapped and caught me?
I wouldn’t like to be found dead from bleeding or starvation in a marten
trap.