Free To Siberia by Per Petterson

Grandfather was in his grave and some days had passed, Lucifer rebelled. The two of them had been together every single day, and Grandfather slept in the stable many times and came out early with straw in his hair, harnessed Lucifer to the trap and went to our town and inland to Hjørring and once all the way to Brønderslev to drink at the inns and come home next morning with the sun.
    Now no one could get near the horse. He left his oats and hay untouched in the manger, he kicked and lashed out in his stall so the walls were smashed to splinters. Grandmother grew so fed up with it that she decided the horse must be shot, and sent for Uncle Nils. The night before he was going out there with his gun there was such an uproar in the stable that the whole farm sat up in their beds, and when Grandmother went running with a lantern in her hand and her nightdress flapping across the yard, the stable door was broken and Lucifer far down Vrangbækvej. Before she could gather people for a search, Lucifer seemed to have vanished from this world. Perhaps he had gone to join Grandfather. That was some horse!
    Jesper and I took off our caps and wished him luck, and not a week passes when we do not look for him when we go out of town on our bikes. When I spin past Aftenstjernen in the evening I always have to look twice at the space outside the door, but there is nothing there except sometimes Baron Biegler’s landau. So Lucifer must have gone forever.
    I walk right up to the shack and around to the back and in through the door that isn’t a door, but a blanket Jesper has hung in the opening to keep out the sand. He is never there in winter and the gales usually sweep in from the sea, so there is no need for it now, and when I get inside it’s suddenly dark after the sunshine outside. I stand still and wait, breathing in the smell of salt and seaweed drying in the sun and sun-scorched tarred poles, there is a strong smell of wood and warmth and my brother Jesper lies on a mattress under the window breathing in and out in all this. He is asleep and I can see him better with each rise of his chest. It is naked, he lies on top of the covers and is naked all over in the faint light from the window where we have hung a little embroidered cloth my mother made. She had embroidered Jesus lives on it. It’s a joke, Jesper and I do not believe in either Jesus or God, and I stand quite still holding my breath, for I have never seen Jesper like this, not so clearly, not so whole, even though we have shared a room for several years. There are sun-bleached stripes in his black hair and he is sunburned with a pale area only over his hips and his hips shine and I want to turn around and go out, for I can’t stand here. But I see everything plainly in the half-darkness now, his clothes on the floor and the fishing rod in the corner and the cutout picture of Lenin on the wall and a photograph of himself and me in front of Aunt Else’s house at Bangsbostrand. I with my round face and mane of hair and he in his shorts, brown as an Arab with a ball under one arm and the other one around me. It seems to me now that we are so small in that picture, but I do remember when it was taken. Remember the sun we are squinting against and my father who is not in it because Aunt Else said, “For heaven’s sake, Magnus, can’t you smile for once,” and he would not smile and angrily walked out of the picture. I remember Jesper’s arm around my shoulder, still remember it today if I just close my eyes, even though I am sixty years old, and he has been dead for more than half my life.
    I walk forward and put the books on the floor beside the mattress and he does not wake up, just breathes evenly so I can feel it on my face. I stay there standing over him, a long time perhaps, and cannot make myself straighten up. My back will not obey, it hurts from my neck down and heat spreads in my hips, and then I start to cry. I cry as quietly as I can, for I am afraid he will