The Indian Bride

CHAPTER 1

The silence is shattered by the barking of a dog. The mother looks up from the sink and stares out of the window. The barking comes from deep in the dog’s throat. All of its black, muscular body quivers with excitement.

Then she sees her son. He gets out of the red Golf and lets a blue bag fall to the ground. He glances toward the window, registering the faint outline of his mother. He goes to the dog and releases it from its chain. The animal throws itself at him. They roll on the ground, sending the dirt flying. The dog growls and her son shouts affectionate curses in its ears. Sometimes he yells at the top of his lungs and smacks the Rottweiler hard across its snout. At last it stays down. Slowly he gets to his feet. Brushes the dust and dirt from his pants. Glances once more at the window. The dog gets up hesitantly and cowers in front of him, its head down, until he allows it to come and lick the corners of his mouth, submissively. Then he walks to the house and comes into the kitchen.

Good God, look at the state of you!

The blue T-shirt is bloodstained. His hands are covered in cuts. The dog has scratched his face, too.

Never seen anything like it, she says and sniffs angrily. Leave the bag. I’m doing a load of laundry later.

He folds his scratched arms across his chest. They are powerful, like the rest of him. Close to two hundred pounds and not a hint of fat. The muscles have just been used and they are warm.

Calm down, he tells her. I’ll do it.

She can’t believe her ears. Him, wash his own clothes?

Where have you been? she says. Surely you don’t work out from six to eleven?

Her son mumbles something. He has his back to her.

With Ulla. We were babysitting

She looks at the broad back. His hair is very blond and stands upright like a brush. Thin stripes have been dyed scarlet. It’s as if he were on fire. He disappears down the basement stairs. She hears the old washing machine start up. She lets the water out of the sink and stares into the yard. The dog has lain down with its head on its paws. The last remnant of light is disappearing. Her son is back, says he’s going to take a shower.

A shower at this hour? You’ve just come from the gym?

He doesn’t reply. Later she hears him in the bathroom, sounding hollow in the tiled space. He’s singing. The door to the medicine cupboard slams. He’s probably looking for a bandage, silly boy.

His mother smiles. All of this violence is only to be expected. He is a man, after all. Later, she would never forget this. The last moment when life was good.

***

It began with Gunder Jomann’s journey. Gunder went all the way to India to find himself a wife. When people asked, he did not say that that was why he had gone. He hardly admitted it to himself. It was a journey to see a bit of the world, he explained when his colleagues asked. What an outrageous extravagance! He never spent anything on himself. Hardly ever went out, never accepted invitations to Christmas parties, kept him-self busy either with his house or his garden or his car. Had never had a woman either, so far as anyone knew. Gunder was not troubled by the gossip. He was in fact a determined man. Slow—it was undeniable—but he got where he wanted without making waves. He had time on his side. In the evenings when he was in his fifty-first year he sat leafing through a book—a present from his younger sister, Marie—People of All Nations. Since he never went anywhere except to and from his workplace, a small, solid business that sold agricultural machinery, she could make sure that at least he had the chance to see pictures of what went on in the great wide world. Gunder read the book and leafed through the illustrations. He was most fascinated by India. The beautiful women with the red dots on their foreheads. Their painted eyes, their flirtatious smiles. One of them looked back at him from the book and he was soon lost in sweet dreams. No one could dream like Gunder. He closed his eyes and flew away. She was as light as a feather in her red costume. Her eyes were so deep and dark, like black glass. Her hair was hidden under a scarf with golden frills. He had been gazing at the photograph for months. It was clear to him that he wanted an Indian wife. Not because he wanted a subservient and self-sacrificing woman, but because he wanted someone he could cherish and adore. Norwegian women didn’t want to be adored. Actually he had never understood them, never understood what they wanted. Because he lacked nothing, as far as he could see. He had a house, a garden, a car, a job, and his kitchen was well equipped. There was a heated floor in the bathroom, and he had a television and a video recorder, a washing machine, a dryer, a microwave, a willing heart, and money in the bank. Gunder understood that there were other, more abstract factors that determined whether you were lucky in love—he wasn’t an imbecile. However, it was not much use to him unless it was something that could be learned or bought. Your time will come, his mother used to say as she lay dying in the big hospital bed. His father had passed away years before. Gunder had grown up with these two women, his mother and his sister, Marie. When his mother was seventy she developed a brain tumor and for long periods she was not herself. He would wait patiently for her to once more become the person he knew and loved. Your time will come. You’re a good boy, you are, Gunder. One fine day a woman will come your way, you’ll see.

But he did not see anyone coming his way. So he booked a flight to India. He knew it was a poor country. Perhaps he might find a woman there who could not afford to turn down his offer of following him all the way to Norway, to this pretty house, which belonged to him. He would pay for her family to come and visit, if they wanted to. He did not wish to separate anyone. And if she had some complicated faith, then he certainly would not stop her from observing it. There were few people as patient as Gunder. If only he could find a wife!

There were other options. But he did not have the courage to get on the bus to Poland with others, strangers. And he did not want to jump on a plane to Thailand. There were so many rumors about what went on there. He wanted to find a woman all by himself. Everything should be up to him. The thought of sitting down browsing through catalogs with photographs and descriptions of different women or staring at a TV screen where they offered themselves one after the other—that was unthinkable to Gunder. He would never be able to make up his mind.

The light from the reading lamp warmed his balding head. On a map of the world he found India and her principal cities: Madras, Bombay, New Delhi. He favored a city by the sea. Many Indians spoke English and he felt reassured by that. Some were even Christians, according to People of All Nations. It would be the most happy coincidence if he were to meet a woman who was perhaps a Christian and spoke English well. It mattered less whether she was twenty or fifty. He did not expect to have children, he was not overambitious, but if she had one, he would accept that as part of the deal. He might have to bargain. There were many customs in other countries so different from the ones here at home; he would pay handsomely if it was a question of money. His inheritance after his mother died was considerable.

First of all he needed to find a travel agency. There were four to choose from. One in the shopping center, consisting only of a counter that you stood leaning against while going through some brochures. Gunder preferred to sit. This was an important decision, not something you did standing up, in a hurry. He would have to go into town; there were three travel agencies there. He looked through the telephone directory. Then he remembered that Marie had once left a holiday brochure in his house to tempt him. So like Marie, he thought, and looked in the index under I. Ialyssos. Ibiza. Ireland. Were there no holidays in India? He found Bali under the Indonesian islands, but dismissed the thought. It was India or nothing. He would just have to ring the airport directly and book. He would manage as always, he always had, and in a big city they would be used to travelers. However, it was evening now and too late to call. Instead he turned the pages of People of All Nations once more. For a long time he sat gazing at the Indian beauty. Imagine that a woman could be so wondrously pretty, so golden and smooth, so exquisitely delicate. She had gathered her shawl beneath her chin with a slender hand. She wore jewelry on her wrists. Her iris was practically black with a flash of light, from the sun perhaps, and she stared straight at Gunder. Into his longing eyes. They were large and blue and he closed them now. She followed him into his dream. He dozed in his chair and floated away with the golden beauty. She was weightless. Her blood-red costume fluttered against his face.

***

He decided to telephone from work during his lunch break. He went into the empty office they hardly ever used. It had been turned into a storeroom. Boxes of binders and files were stacked against the walls. A colorful poster on one wall showed a rugged man sitting on a tractor in a field. The field was so large that it disappeared, like the sea, into a blurred, blue horizon. no farmer, no norway, it said on the poster. Gunder dialed the number. Press two if you are traveling abroad, a voice said. He pressed two and waited. Then a new voice came on. You are now number nineteen in line. Please hold. The message was repeated at intervals. He doodled on the pad next to him. Tried drawing an Indian dragon. Through the window he saw a car pull in. You are now number sixteen in line . . . number ten . . . number eight. He felt that he was being counted down toward something very decisive. His heart beat faster, and he drew his clumsy dragon even more enthusiastically. Then he saw Svarstad, a farmer, emerging from his black Ford. He was a good customer and always asked for Gunder; he also hated to be kept waiting. It was getting more urgent. Music began to flow through the handset and a voice announced that he would soon be connected to an available travel consultant. Just then Bjørnsson, one of the young salesmen, burst into the room.

Svarstad, Bjørnsson said. He’s asking for you. What are you doing sitting in here anyway?

I’ll be right there. You’ll have to keep him busy with small talk for a little while. Talk about the weather, it’s been very fine recently. Gunder listened to the receiver. A female voice came through.

He just ignores me and tells me to get lost, said Bjørnsson. Gunder motioned him away. Eventually Bjørnsson took the hint and disappeared. Svarstad’s disgruntled face could be seen through the window. The quick glance at his watch indicated that he didn’t have all the time in the world and was irritated that they did not all come running at once.

Well, it’s like this, Gunder said. I want to go to Bombay. In India. In two weeks.

From Gardermoen airport? asked the voice.

Yes. Leaving Friday in two weeks.

He heard how her fingers swept across her keyboard and marveled at how rapid they were.

You need to fly to Frankfurt, departing at 10:15, she said. From Frankfurt there is a flight at 13:10. It lands at 00:40, local time.

The local time is? Gunder said. He was scribbling like mad.

The time difference is three hours and thirty minutes, she said.

Very well. I would like to book the ticket, then. How much is it?

Return flight?

He hesitated. What if there were two of them flying back? That was what he was hoping for, dreaming of, and wishing for.

Can I change the ticket later on?

Yes, that’s possible.

Then I’ll take the return flight

That will be 6,900 kroner. You can collect your ticket at the airport, or we can mail it to you. Which would you prefer?

Mail it, he said. And gave her his name and address and credit card number. Blindveien, number two.

Just one small thing, the woman said when the booking was done. It is no longer called Bombay.

It isn’t? Gunder said, surprised.

The city is called Mumbai. Since 1995.

I’ll remember that, said Gunder earnestly.

SAS wishes you a pleasant flight

He put the receiver down. At that moment Svarstad tore open the door to the office and gave him an angry look. He was looking to buy a harvester and had clearly decided to terrorize Gunder to the limit. The acquisition made him sweat all over. He clung grimly to his family farm and no one dared to buy a new machine jointly with Svarstad. He was utterly impossible to work with.

Svarstad, said Gunder, and leaped to his feet. Everything that had happened had made his cheeks go scarlet. Let’s get started.

***

In the days that followed Gunder was unsettled. His concentration was poor and he was wide awake. It was difficult to fall asleep at night. He lay thinking of the long journey and the woman he might meet. Among all of Bombay’s—he corrected himself—among all of Mumbai’s twelve million people there had to be one for him. She was living her life there and suspected nothing. He wanted to buy her a little present. Something from Norway that she had never seen before. A Norwegian filigree brooch, perhaps, for her red costume. Or the blue or the green costume. Anyway, a brooch was what it would be. The next day he would drive into town and find one. Nothing big or ostentatious, rather something small and neat. Something to fasten her shawl with, if she wore shawls. But perhaps she wore pants and sweaters—what did he know? His imagination went wild and he was still wide awake. Did she have a red dot on her forehead? In his mind he put his finger on it and in his mind she smiled shyly at him. Very nice, said Gunder in English into the darkness. He had to practice his English. Thank you very much. See you later. He did know a little.

***

Svarstad had as good as made up his mind. It was to be a Dominator from Claes, a 58s.

Gunder agreed. Only the best is good enough, he smiled, bubbling over with his Indian secret. Six-cylinder Perkins engine with one hundred horsepower. Three-stage mechanical gearbox with hydraulic speed variator. Cutting board of three yards, sixty.

And the price? said Svarstad glumly, although he knew perfectly well that the cost of this marvel was 570,000 kroner. Gunder folded his arms across his chest.

You need a new baling press, too. Make a proper investment for once and get yourself a Quadrant with it. You don’t have much storage space.

I need to have round bales, Svarstad said. I can’t handle big bales.

That’s just giving in to a habit, said Gunder unperturbed. If you have the proper tools, you can reduce the number of seasonal workers. They cost money, too, the Poles, don’t they? With a new Dominator and a new press you can do the job without them. I’ll give you an unbeatable price as well. Trust me.

Svarstad chewed on a straw. He had a furrow in his weather-beaten brow and sadness in his deep-set eyes, which gave way slowly to a radiant dream. No other salesman would have tried selling one more piece of machinery to a man who could barely afford a harvester, but Gunder had gambled and as usual he had won.

Consider it an investment in the future, he said. You’re still a young man. Why settle for second best? You’re working yourself to death. Let the Quadrant make big bales—they stack easily and take up less room. No one else in the area has dared to try big bales. Soon they’ll every one of them come running to have a look.

That did it. Svarstad was delighted at the prospect, a small group of neighbors poking their noses into his yard. But he needed to make a call. Gunder showed him into the empty office. Meanwhile he went away to draw up the contract; the sale was practically in the bag. It could not have worked out better.

A substantial sale before the long journey. He would be able to make his journey with a clear conscience.

Svarstad reappeared. Green light from the bank, he said. He was lobster red, but his eyes shone beneath the bushy brows.

Excellent, Gunder said.

After work he went into town and found a jewelry shop. He stared at the glass counter containing rings, only rings. He asked to be shown the national costume silver and the assistant asked him what kind.

Gunder shrugged. Well, anything. A brooch, I think. It’s a present. But she doesn’t have a Norwegian national costume.

You only wear filigree brooches with a national costume pronounced the woman in a schoolmistressy tone.

But it has to be something from Norway, Gunder said. Something essentially Norwegian

For a foreign lady? the assistant wanted to know.

Yes. I was thinking she would wear it with her own national costume.

And what sort of costume is that? she asked, her curiosity increasing.

An Indian sari, said Gunder proudly.

Silence behind the counter. The assistant was evidently torn as to what she should do. She was not unaffected by Gunder’s charming stubbornness and she could hardly refuse to sell him what he wanted to buy. On the other hand the Norwegian Craft Council did have rules as to what was permissible. However, if a woman wanted to wander about in India wearing a filigree brooch on a bright orange sari, then the Craft Council would be none the wiser. So she got out the tray with the national costume silver and selected a medium-size filigree brooch, wondering if the strangely self-possessed customer was aware of how much it was going to cost.

How much is that one? Gunder said.

Fourteen hundred kroner. To give you an idea, I can show you this one from Hardanger. We have bigger brooches than this one and smaller ones, too. However, there is often quite a lot of gold in those saris, so I suppose it ought to be plain—if it’s to have the desired effect.

Here her voice took on an ironic twist, but she suppressed it when she saw Gunder. He took the spiraling brooch from the velvet and held it in his rough hands. Held it up to the light. His face took on a dreamy expression. She softened. There was something about this man, this heavy, slow, shy man, that she warmed to in spite of everything. He was courting.

Gunder did not want to look at any other brooches. He would only begin to have doubts. So he bought the first one, which was anyway the best, and had it wrapped. He planned to unwrap it when he got home and admire it again. In the car on his way back he drummed on the wheel as he imagined her brown fingers opening the package. The paper was black with tiny specks of gold. The ribbon around the box was blood red. It lay on the seat next to him. Perhaps he needed to get some pills for the trip. For his stomach. All that foreign food, he thought. Rice and curry. Spicy and hot as hell. And Indian currency. Was his passport valid? He was going to be busy. He had better call Marie.

***

The village where Gunder lived was called Elvestad. It had 2,347 inhabitants. A wooden church from the Middle Ages, restored in 1970. A gas station, a school, a post office, and a roadside café. The café was an ugly cross between a hut and a raised storehouse; it stood on pillars and steep steps led up to the entrance. On entering you immediately faced a jukebox, a Wurlitzer that was still in use. On the roof was a red and white sign with the words EINAR’S CAFÉ. At night Einar switched on the light in the sign.

Einar Sunde had run the café for seventeen years. He had a wife and children and was in debt up to his eyeballs because of his grandiose chalet-style villa just outside the village. A license to sell beer had meant that he was at last able to meet his mortgage payments. For this simple reason there were always people in the café. He knew the villagers and ran the place with an iron hand. He pretty soon found out which year most of the young people were born in and would put his hand over the beer tap if they tried it when they were still underage. There was also a village hall, where weddings and confirmations were celebrated. Most of the villagers were farmers. Added to that were quite a few newcomers, people who had fled the city having entertained a romantic notion of a quieter life in the country. This they had gotten. The sea was only half an hour away, but the salty air did not reach the village; it smelled of onions and leeks, or the rank smell of manure in the spring and the sweet smell of apples in the autumn. Einar was from the capital, but he had no longing to go back. He was the sole proprietor of the café. As long as he had the café there wasn’t a living soul who would dare try setting up within miles. He would run this café until they carried him out in a box. Because he managed to prevent excessive drinking and fights, everyone felt comfortable going in there. Women for coffee and pastries, kids for frankfurters and Coke, young people for a beer. He aired the place properly, emptied the ashtrays and replaced the nightlights whenever they burned out, kept it impeccably clean. His wife washed the red and white checkered tablecloths in the machine at home. True, the place lacked style, but he had drawn the line at actual kitsch. There were no plastic flowers. He had recently invested in a bigger dishwasher to save him having to wash the glasses by hand. The health inspector was welcome to visit his kitchen; it was fit for use as far as the equipment and cleanliness went.

It was here, in Einar’s Café, that people kept abreast of what was going on in the village. Who was seeing whom, who was in the process of getting a divorce, and which farmer might any second now have to sell out. A single minicab was at the villagers’ disposal. Kalle Moe drove a white Mercedes and could be contacted by landline or cell phone, always sober and always available. If he wasn’t, he would get you a minicab from town. As long as Kalle Moe operated his minicab service in the village, there was no room for any other license. He was past sixty and there were many waiting in the wings.

Einar Sunde was at his café six days a week till ten o’clock in the evening on weekdays. On Saturdays he stayed open until midnight; on Sundays the café was closed. He was a hard worker, moved quickly, a beanpole of a man with reddish hair and long thin arms. A tea towel was tucked into his waistband; it was replaced the moment it was stained. His wife, Lillian, who hardly ever saw him except at night, lived her own life and they had nothing in common anymore. They couldn’t even be bothered to argue. Einar didn’t have time to dream of something better, he was too busy working. The chalet-style villa was worth 1.6 million kroner and had a sauna and a gym, which he never had the time to use.

All or part of the village’s hard core hung out at the café. It consisted mostly of young men ages eighteen to thirty, with or without girlfriends. Because Einar had a license to sell beer, they never went into town to meet girls from farther away. You could walk home from the café the village was no bigger than that. They would rather have a few more beers than pay for an expensive minicab from town. So they married local girls and stayed here. However, before it got to that, the girls were passed around. It created a peculiar solidarity, with many unwritten rules.

Following a great deal of debate in the local council, Elvestad had acquired a shopping center, as a result of which the local shop, Gunwald’s one-stop shop, was languishing next to the Shell gas station. Within the shopping center some brave soul had set up shop with two sun beds, another had opened a florist’s, and a third a small perfumery. On the floors above were offices for the doctor and the dentist, and Anne’s hairdressing salon. None of the young people from the village went there. Their hair had to be cut in town. Studs and rings in belly buttons and noses were also taken care of in town. Anne knew their parents and had been known to refuse. The older people, however, loyally shopped at Gunwald’s. They came with their granny shopping carts and ancient gray rucksacks and bought hashed lung and blood pudding and soft, sharp cheese. It was a good business for Ole Gunwald. He had paid off his mortgage ages ago.

Gunder never went to the café, but Einar knew very well who he was. On rare occasions Gunder would stop and buy a Krone strawberry ice cream, which if the weather was good he ate outside sitting by a plastic table. Einar knew Gunder’s house, knew that it was about two and a half miles from the center of the village toward Randskog. Besides, all the farmers in the village bought their machinery from Gunder. He was just coming through the door now, his hand already in his inside pocket.

Just wanted to know, he said self-consciously, and rather hurriedly considering this was Gunder, how long would it take to get from here to the airport by car?

Gardermoen airport? said Einar. I’d say an hour and a half. If you’re going abroad you need to be there one hour before departure. And if I were you I’d throw in another half hour to be on the safe side.

He kept on rubbing a triangular ashtray.

Morning flight? he asked, curious.

Gunder picked out an ice cream from the freezer.

10:15.

You’ll have to get up early then.

Einar turned his back and carried on working. He was neither friendly nor smiling; he looked like a much-misunderstood man and did not meet Gunder’s gaze. If I were you I’d leave by 7:00.

Gunder nodded and paid. Asking Einar was preferable to revealing his ignorance to the woman from SAS. Einar knew who Gunder was and would not want to embarrass him. On the other hand, everyone in the village would know about his journey this very same evening.

You going far? Einar asked casually, wiping another ashtray.

Very, very far, said Gunder lightly. He tore the wrapper off