The Gift of Grief E-Book

Søren Landkildehus

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 251

Beschreibung

"Open the box and it will take your grief, but it will take it completely." This novel comprises of five stories. Each in its own genre, they form an interwoven dialogue on sorrow and reparations.

Leseprobe

You are here...

First words

Grief-oak

God's Gift

Adam Gamasgar

Mother's Game

My Father's House

Acknowledgements

I am grateful and hugely indebted to Julie Elaine, Jean, Lise, Helle

Cathrine and Hugh for reading drafts, versions and the final

manuscript. The remaining mistakes are due to my willfulness.

FIRST WORDS

This is a novel comprising of five stories that took form in the lead up to and during a stay at San Cataldo in Scala, Italy, in 2022. San Cataldo is a former nunnery that was bought in the late 18-hundreds by a Dane who renovated the place and made it a retreat for ‘artists, scientists and other workers of the spirit'. Before arriving at San Cataldo, I spent a few days in the bustling city of Naples. After a long day visiting Pompeii and Vesuvius I decided to go for pizza in the evening. There is a rather famous pizza place in the old town and the magic of that night when serendipity would have it that I met a couple of young medical doctors from Birmingham stays with me to this day. Weary from a couple of years of COVID they were having a vacation. I owe them a story.

GRIEF-OAK

1. Frost

Out of the silence a heart-wrenching cry. They found her holding her dead child. Her inconsolable tears and spasms formed a circle of awful sanctity. They found her unapproachable and yet they had to approach. They broke her circle. They broke her grip around the lifeless body. They took her child. They took her. They broke her too. They gave her soup.

It was wintertime. The cold was neither too much nor too little. You would freeze too, inviting death, if you were unlucky or careless. She had been both. Her heart froze on that day when her child went to stand on thin ice without a care in the world and a with lovely smile. There is something unearthly about a drowned body. She noticed how unreal it all seemed in contrast to the very real absence of life in the body to which she had given life. First she had tried frantically to breathe life back into the body. Then with fists she had fiercely tried to beat the child back to life. Blow upon blow. For every blow she herself was beaten into the finality of death. The horror dawned upon her that she had not known she had invited death. She felt stupid.

"We have to get the child away from her. If we stand here and let her carry on she will disgrace herself and perhaps die too. If some of us take the child and the rest of us take her, then we can honour the dead child, and we can keep her alive. Care for her. Let her grieve and then she can move on. She has other children to care for. We will take charge and give her soup.” The voice of a community covers a plurality of intentions.

Naturally the soup was warm. On other days it might even have been tasty. Notice the hate that wells up when realising how the body belies grief when it needs food. You both loathe the food and crave it. It is unbearable. They care for you. Help you with the other children. Help you keep clean. Help you stand at the funeral. Sitting and walking and sleeping, they help you. They help you with their impatience too. Now it has been a year. You must be moving on. You must stop going to the grave. You must embrace your other children. They make you feel inadequate and in more need of their help. They like to give it but they want to demand something in return. They want you to move on. Perhaps they need you to be a part of 'us', who help when some 'you' is in need of our help. They think you are weak. And you still think that you are stupid. And then the darkness of the infinite depths of grief overwhelms you so absolutely. It is not missing, and it is not like missing someone. It is not wistfulness. You are not alone in grief. No. The dead are present. It is what makes it so unbearable. If only they were gone.

Mother was not herself after that day. She did not speak. Sometimes she cried, sometimes she was completely motionless. They came with soup. They helped us, the children, with homework and how to keep clean. They felt a pity I didn't understand. But mother was weak. It had been three years. We children had to learn from it. We children must not be such a burden to the 'us'. I didn't understand. It seemed that they somehow wanted mother to be a burden. As if someone had to be. It was us, the children who had to learn not be a burden while still being in the grip of it. Mother had made a circle. A circle of awful sanctity which kept her away from everything. Silence and the unbearable grief rebuilt the circle day in and day out. Then one day the sojourner came.

We gathered around the sojourner to hear news and stories and to be thrilled and appalled by that which is different from us. The sojourner is not us either. Well, transitory belonging - as a sojourner is by nature - we allow the sojourner to tarry for a while. But when the sojourner needs to go we all know it. We might help that realisation on its way. Pitchforks and torches. There is something the sojourner takes away from us that we do not like losing. Our certainty.

This time the face of the sojourner was an old woman in a grey woollen cloak. She went to mother. She looked deeply into mother's eyes.

"I can take it with me,” she said as she produced from somewhere a wooden box. It was made of a strange variety of oak and the box had black iron fittings. A diamond-shaped piece of metal adorned the lid. She looked mother in the eyes.

"Open the box and it will take your grief... but it will take it completely.” She whispered while mother opened the box.

Mother was the pillar of us. She had moved on and was now part of the 'us' that helps some 'you' that cannot help 'yourself'. There was some other now who needed help. We children were now grown. Ten years had passed. For us anyway. Mother's time was different after opening the box. I didn't understand. I spent time wondering what had happened when the sojourner took mother's grief. Mother was smiling, chatty and caring. But I didn't recognise her. I asked. She looked at me and it was clear she thought that I was weak. I felt stupid. Mother showed me pity, but also gave me the gift of impatience.

"You should be moving on,” she said, unemotionally. I went to the grave.

They keep the dead in enclosures so that they know where they are. It's all a lie anyway, but they like to forget them by putting them away. They forget that the dead are where our thoughts are even when we don't remember them directly. We are continually more than just those who happen to breathe. I stood next to the grave. I wondered what had happened to Mother. I had asked. She felt pity for my weakness. I began to understand. Mother didn't understand either. I had to ask the sojourner. I was worried.

'What happens to us when we no longer remember the dead?' I thought to myself.

I went back through the village where all the familiar faces seemed so unfamiliar. Even my siblings, the remaining ones, looked strange. I might have looked different too. I felt left out, uncommitted, and unwelcome. This cluster of houses next to a deathly lake was no longer home. The trees on the slopes of the mountain sides were spruce. In the valley next to the lake they were maple and birch. There was a large oak in the middle of the village. But none of the trees that I could see could do what the sojourner's box did. The mystery of how mother lost her grief troubled me and ignited a desire to know.

Mother had made potage in the large iron cauldron on the hearth. Grains, pulses and dried fruit cooked in broth filled the house with steam. The food was served in hollowed-out breads. This was our trencher on days of festivities. Equinox was upon us. Tradition demanded that we would celebrate the anticipated arrival of spring. Soon we could eat other things than stored goods from last year. But for me it was also a farewell feast... a festival. Saying goodbye to the ways of my now lost community. I didn't say much while we ate. Then mother looked at me.

"When do you leave?” She was unmoved.

"In the early morning hours." I looked around at my stone-faced siblings, "You need not get up to say goodbye." My demeanour dismissed any discussion. They seemed relieved. I understood that there was no love, only tolerance for me in this setting. I didn't understand how that had transformed from how we had played together as small children. ‘Perhaps the one who died was the reason why we liked each other in the first place?' I thought and wondered how the loss of one person can transform relations so profoundly.

"Thank you for the meal." I rose and left to pack.

2. Following

Moving on through the landscape is at first a great joy. Then it is dreary. Everything looks new and then again old. I kept my focus on the path. Village after village, meadow after meadow, mountain after mountain. I spent time walking in the footsteps of the sojourner and finally I caught up to her. I wondered out loud if my speed was greater or if she wanted me to pass her on the winding paths. She looked deeply into my eyes.

"It depends on perspective,” she huffed. I didn't understand. I asked. She laughed.

In the back of the sojourner's cart there were several wooden boxes. Some of oak and some made out of many different types of wood. She was carrying some of them to the Master Mourner. The oak ones anyway. The more flashy ones of ebony the young knights give to each other in great secret, the ones made of elm to the dentists, and the ones made of cedar to the drapers.

"I shall not ask you what they take away.” I was eager to please. The sojourner laughed.

The Master Mourner paid handsomely for the oaken boxes. He took ten. He was dressed all in blue and looked sternly at me without really acknowledging me. He leant towards me.

"Do you know about boxes?” he demanded.

"Perhaps,” I answered sure of myself. The master mourner looked sharply at the sojourner.

"Do you intend to take this child there?” he shouted angrily. The sojourner laughed.

In the great city quite close to the Master Mourner's solitary tower, the market was full of people wanting boxes. Dentists, drapers and knights alike each went to get their specific type of box. And so many others that I lost count. I found my way to an inn and secured both ale and potage for two and oats for the horse that pulled the cart. I felt enormously important that I helped the sojourner in this great endeavour of hers. I even began announcing where people could find boxes. One knight with a fresh wound on his face went to buy an ebony box. He looked at me and then at the sojourner.

"I see you have got yourself an apprentice,” he joked. The sojourner laughed.

After a week the sojourner had no more boxes to sell. I took courage to broach the subject of my inquiry.

"What about the box my mother opened?” I posed the question with obvious curiosity. The sojourner turned her face and looked deeply into my eyes.

"What about it?” she said cautiously.

"Do you still have it?” My voice now had a demanding tone. The sojourner's eyes were piercing mine.

"Who wants to know?” she whispered.

"I do.” I began to tremble. The sojourner broke the gaze, stood and brushed her grey woollen cloak. She remained silent.

She was well on her way again when I caught up with her after some weeks. I wondered why she had left without letting me know. But I didn't ask. I remained silent just walking along. The horse recognised me, but the sojourner barely noticed me. After a couple of days I stopped trying to find food for us all. There was just me, the sojourner and her horse. There was separation. But I kept walking along.

From afar it was clear that the sojourner had brought someone along. Master Carver stroked his beard absentmindedly.

"Wonder if that one will take sugar in the tea,” he whispered. Master Carver took the sugar bowl and shook it.

"It will be tea without,” he concluded. Water was brought to the boil and poured over the little dark greenish lumps of rolled up tea leaves. Master Carver took great delight in watching the little lumps unfold in the scalding water. As the sound of the horse drew nearer, Master Carver took the tea cauldron and cups for three outside. And oats for the horse.

From afar the smell of oats was so familiar. The horse moved at a steady pace but very expectantly. The sojourner had not bothered with oats for many years. Lately, it had been that apprentice who had been a source of the treat. But it had stopped. ‘Human beings are so strange. They do some things for some time and then they change. They change and then they do not when they are supposed to change. They walk only on two legs. That must be the reason why. They are not entirely in contact with the ever-changing permanence of the ground. How they even move is a great mystery. When they are very young, like foals, they are on all fours. They must regret such quick decline when they stand upright so soon. Oats. Nothing beats oats. And the oats here on the outskirts of the great forest are particularly good.'

From afar the sojourner saw the hut at the outskirts of the great forest. She knew Master Carver would be wondering who the ‘walk-along' was. She knew tea would be ready. She knew there would be no sugar. She could not suppress a smile at that thought, but no one noticed. The repetitive return to the hut to get boxes had taught her never to expect sugar. For all the kindness of the Master Carver there was always a chipping away of the superfluous in his behaviour. The sojourner wondered what bit he would chisel away this time. He would inquire silently about the ‘walk-along'. He would be relentless and the walk-along would not withstand the power of silence. The walk-along would talk incessantly. And Master Carver would look at her. And chisel. Not even this would be allowed to stay untouched. But that was the price of getting the boxes.

Far from the little hut on the outskirts of the forest, I noticed that both the horse and the sojourner changed. The changed behaviour looked like anticipation and trepidation. Excitement betwixt vexation. Somehow the horse knew something nice was waiting, and the sojourner signalled even greater withdrawal. I began looking at my feet. And observed first how the sojourner walked. Trying to walk in the same manner, I was overwhelmed with a tired expectation of some ritual: the person living in that hut may be an acquaintance, but not a festive one. She's worried about how I'll behave - the insight suddenly came to me. Dropping out of her manner of walking and trying as best as I could to walk like the horse, it occurred to me that I lacked two extra legs to make it right. Perhaps all the horse was minded to do was to expect some decent fodder. I was clear that I could not decode what a horse might think without the extra legs. I suppressed a smile.

There was tea ready but no sugar. The horse went straight to the oats. The sojourner and Master Carver exchanged a silent greeting. The ‘walk-along’ stood in the background and moved only when beckoned to sit on a makeshift wooden stool that was placed between the sojourner and Master Carver. In the half circle, tea stood on another makeshift construction. They drank tea. No one spoke. Master Carver looked steadily at the sojourner. She endured the gaze for a long time. Then she began to weep. Master Carver then looked at the 'walk-along'. The 'walk-along' stared back.

"I make boxes,” Master Carver finally said in a deep bass voice. The 'walk-along' nodded.

"You will learn to make boxes too.” The 'walk-along' nodded again. They left the sojourner weeping into her tea.

Shaken and empty of emotion the sojourner sighed and brushed the neighing horse to remove dirt. She would stay here at the outskirts of the great forest for a day or two until the wagon was filled with boxes. Surprisingly, the 'walk-along' had not spoken at all. Perhaps the 'walk-along' had learned something after all? The price this time had been costly. She wondered how her heart could endure it. She sighed again. What pain there is in the grind of everyday and how much of it that is recorded in the strings of the heart. And then with the relentless chiseling of Master Carver. 'Why am I not allowed this for myself?' The thought was brief and her sense of 'I' fleeting as it left quickly. Pain and grief make the ego strong, as strong as any knot. It is a knot. Master Carver chisels it away. The horse neighed.

The wagon left overloaded with boxes and the walk-along was now an apprentice Carver. Master Carver saw the sojourner off with a silent greeting and went to the workshop where his new apprentice was fast asleep on a heap of sawdust. The morning was just about breaking and it was time for tea. The apprentice had to learn the different ways a piece of wood is assessed.

"And you can only do that if you learn how to tell the grain,” Master Carver instructed. So the apprentice would start sorting out the stacks of wood. The apprentice would soon lose patience with this. Master Carver shook the sugar bowl.

"Tea without.” He chuckled.

The apprentice had stacked the pile of wood seven times.

"Again!” Master Carver had said. So now instead of doing it again mindlessly, the apprentice sat with one piece of wood and looked at it very carefully. The first thought was what design of box might this fit into. And how to carve it. So, from that thought the apprentice looked at all the other pieces and made an elaborate system. With great expectation the apprentice anticipated that Master Carver would applaud the learning that the apprentice had amassed in just one morning. It was now midday, lunch was on the horizon - perhaps. Master Carver came, looked at the stack, listened to the apprentice talk about the elaborate system. Master Carver nodded and took three pieces of wood according to the elaborate system the apprentice had made. The apprentice followed him with proud expectation, but instead of going to the workshop, Master Carver threw the pieces of wood into the stove.

"The potage will warm nicely in a few minutes. Thank you for arranging the firewood,” he said amused by the apprentice's dumbfounded look.

Keeping the tools in the workshop in perfect working order meant that the apprentice had to clean each and every one daily before the evening meal. After getting to a thousand the apprentice stopped counting. The first day, the apprentice nearly asked Master Carver why the ones that hadn't been used should be cleaned. But the apprentice had learnt from the wood-piling that too many thoughts might not be good. The apprentice would fare better if Master Carver wasn't asked too much. And in this way, the apprentice would know every tool quite intimately. As time went on, more and more tasks were piled on the apprentice so that the evening meal had to be postponed a little further every day.

"I am accustomed to eat before the owl flies,” Master Carver said a little impatiently.

"But with all the tasks I cannot make the evening meal earlier. You know, there is more than a thousand tools to clean every day,” the apprentice complained.

"Yes, but why do you clean tools that have not been used?” Master Carver replied.

Master Lumberjack knocked on the door one day, and Master Carver beamed with happiness. There was tea with sugar. But not for the apprentice. The workshop was filled with tasks and one of them was making an ebony box. Watching the two masters drinking tea in the late afternoon whispering delightfully, the box took on a life of its own. The apprentice had eyes on the wood and how the tools touched the wood. But the apprentice's spirit shimmered in the vicinity of the two and clung to each familiarity between them. The box was not finished before the evening meal. ‘This is one that needs a bit more work,’ the apprentice thought. After the meal, the two masters sat in the darkening twilight next to each other. Master Carver reached out and stroked Master Lumberjack's beard. Now the apprentice knew.

"This box will keep affection and stolen moments,” the apprentice spoke to the wood.

The next morning, Master Carver called the apprentice to attention.

"You must travel with Master Lumberjack to know the forest," he instructed. The apprentice nodded and presented the box that had been finished in the darkness of the night.

"This is for you Master Carver," the apprentice said. The ebony box was in all its simplicity a very stunning piece. Without any metal, the box was put together with complicated joinery and the lid hinged with a splint of grief-oak. Master Carver looked at the box. Saw the griefoak and was a little perturbed.

"Did you remember to use the gloves?" The apprentice nodded. Master Carver looked at Master Lumberjack.

"The apprentice is observant and surprisingly patient. But does not understand," Master Carver said with a sigh and a tear trickled down his cheek. Master Lumberjack reached out and wiped the tear away.

"Looks like the apprentice understands more than you," Master Lumberjack said affectionately.

They left the hut leaving Master Carver waving goodbye at them. Soon they reached the forest border to enter into it. But it was clear that the forest path was no path at all.

"It requires skill to walk in forests, because too much noise will make it virtually impossible to sense it," Master Lumberjack said before they entered. So, the first rule the apprentice had to learn was to speak a different language. Master Lumberjack showed the way.

"First you have to touch the branches to greet the forest. Then you have to smell the moss and lean into the trunk of a tree. And as you spend time greeting the forest, little messages in the chemical make up of the intertwined system of roots spread the news.” Master Lumberjack sang.

"Respectable bipeds are entering.” The hazel alerted the rest of the forest. Following Master Lumberjack's way of moving allowed the apprentice to understand the way the forest was thinking. Almost too elaborately silent, Master Lumberjack would call the apprentice's attention to features of the foliage, the mosses, the fungi, the flowers and the bark. For the forest, a rare spectacle was unfolding: a pas de deux of peculiar dancers.

"The only way to move in a forest with respect is if you dance within it.” He broke the silence with a voice that sounded like the wind in the leaves. The burly lumberjack was surprisingly elegant and lightfooted. He would balance on branches, pirouette on twigs, and shift gravity on a root. Thrown into the mix was the sudden symphony of birds and breezes through the leaves. At first the birdsong sounded aggressive: 'go-go-away', 'my-turf-turf-turf', 'you-won't-get-my-my-my-sweetheart', 'fuck-fuck-fuckoff', then it sounded like posturing: 'my-feathers'-are-finest', 'starlings-sing-beautiful-fully-full', and 'see-me-me-me-me-red'n'rosy'; in the end the sounds became as recognisable as any language, but impossible to translate. In changing rhythm, the crescendos and diminuendos seeped into their bodies and elevated their ability to complete extraordinary movements that somehow corresponded with the obstacle that they had to traverse, the help the trees offered, and the musicality of their step. In the lightness of the apprentice's being, it was only later reflection that showed that trust in the ground opened the possibility of being elegantly sufficient for communing with the forest. They danced through beech, birch, larch, pine, oak, ash, cedar, ebony, and many more. This was a forest of all possible varieties of trees. They saw the pools of vainglory in the tops of trees that were decomposing. They danced into treehouses woven as birds would weave their nests. They tiptoed around ancient blood-oaks and stood in awe of a little grove of grief-oak. The pas de deux felt brief, at least for the apprentice. But standing again at the edge of the forest, the apprentice realised that time had moved on at a speed, where some years had passed outside of the forest.

"Now you know the forest,” Master Lumberjack said.

"What now?" the apprentice replied.

"Now you make the commitment. You walk back to clear up. So that you can become a master. But before that we shall take tea with Master Carver." His chuckle was as melodious as a blackbird's call.

"Will it be tea with sugar?" the apprentice laughed. Master Lumberjack responded with sudden gravity and seriousness.

"Most definitely with sugar!" he bellowed. As the apprentice solemnly began leading the way to Master Carver a proud smile danced across Master Lumberjack's face and ended in a sparkle in his eyes.

Tea with sugar was ready when they arrived. Master Carver's eyes sparkled in concert with Master Lumberjack as they both took turns to acknowledge each other while the apprentice showed all the learning amassed.

"One thing is to know how to make boxes, another to know the forest, and yet another what box fits the purpose you discover." Master Carver looked very formal and beckoned his mate to speak.

"Now you are no longer an apprentice," Master Lumberjack announced.

"But surely I'm not a master?" The former apprentice suddenly felt uneasy.

"Not yet," the two masters said in unison.

"What am I then?"

Master Carver pointed to a wagon covered with a sheet of tarp. It was the sojourner's wagon. But the sojourner herself was nowhere to be seen.

"But where is the sojourner?"

"No longer the sojourner."

Master Carver pointed to a mound further afield and motioned to indicate that she had died.

"So, I'm the new sojourner?" the sojourner said.

"Yes, for a while," Master Carver said. "But don't lose yourself in the travels and don't lose yourself in the needs of others or you will end in a grave like her, broken-hearted and carrying too much of other peoples' grief." The sojourner looked at the two lovers.

"And how do I manage that?”

Master Lumberjack looked deep into the sojourner's eyes.

"You give grief,” he prophesied.

The sojourner left the two lovers to care for each other and moved to the horse that stood in the holding pen next to the wagon. The sojourner lifted the tarp and saw a pile of boxes of many different sizes and types of wood. The sojourner looked at them and wondered where they would end.

"Probably in the waste pile rotting," the sojourner said aloud and addressed the horse, "if I am going to give grief there are some boxes missing.”

With that the sojourner went to the workshop. The sojourner went first to the pile of grief-oak and with the gloves found the pieces that would act as joinery and decoration. Then from the pile of rosewood a large box was made with hinges of grief-oak. The emptiness of the inside of the box was almost too much to bear. It beckoned to be filled. But that was just the challenge, perhaps nothing needed to be put in that box. Obviously, one might always think that boxes must be used, why else have them. ‘Boxes have many uses, even some that are beyond our comprehension,' the sojourner thought. The moon had risen when the sojourner had finished the polish and into the finish the reflection of moonshine caught the breath of the sojourner.

"They will never know how that grief bitter-sweetly is to determine their lives!" the sojourner whispered.

The sojourner continued to build boxes as the night enveloped the hut on the edge of the forest. While the two lovers snored satisfied, the sojourner fashioned a small box of pinewood with a little spring of grief-oak that could allow a surprise to jump out of it. As the sojourner mended a little crack in the pinewood a smile danced around in the darkness.

"What has longevity other than the grief of love?" The sojourner spoke to the wood.

Next in line was a larger table-top box of weeping willow inlaid with grief-oak in an intricate design. The insides were compartmentalised to store chess pieces, cards and other instruments of competition. As the box neared its completion the sojourner yearned for some food. It was a little past midnight and the kitchen was lit by the smouldering embers on the hearth. The sojourner took some olives, some pickled fish, capers and a little garlic and had it with leftover dumplings from the two masters' dinner. In a jug on the table the remains of some wine stood invitingly.

"All very primitive,” the sojourner commented on the situation and returned to the workshop where the contrasts of the intarsia of the elaborate box caught the sojourner off guard.

"Tragic how something so primitive is so convoluted," the sojourner whispered to the wood, and concluded "Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't, dreamt to be dreamed."