Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom

Author:Merethe Lindstrom [Lindstrom, Merethe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Psychological, Family Life, Literary
ISBN: 1590515951
Google: wkYpVDhHfcgC
Amazon: B00BO4GEGU
Barnesnoble: B00BO4GEGU
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2013-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

ON THE DAYS he is not at the center, he wants us to drive. He does not say where he wants to go, but I know that he wants us to seek out places we have visited before. He seems contented then.

I drive him.

There’s a pleasant smell of leather in the car, no matter the time of year it is always snug and secure, I have the feeling of being in a house, a movable house that has been built around us. Most often we go nowhere.

The drives started many years ago, but they had a more fixed purpose at that time. We were on our way to the cottage, or to visit my relatives, one of the children who was studying in a different city, or some of his colleagues. We still sometimes go on extended journeys. We drive out of the city, perhaps the sun is striking the roofs of the passing cars, a stream of cars. Soon, up in the mountains, they disperse and disappear, only one or two will follow us farther up, but then they too are gone. It is spring, almost summer or fall, early fall. He often sits with his head sideways, resting on his shoulder, he is sleeping or just leaning his head there. His gray hair against the seat fabric, the heat of the car. Previously he was often the one who drove. We would talk about things we saw, sometimes it was a river coming up on one side, meandering its way down the valley. The water and the earth beneath appear green, a turquoise color, and in one particular spot it is like a whirlpool, churning, an agitated movement, as though trying to run the other way, against its own power that draws it downward. Other rivers are clear and slow, melted glass running over stones, perhaps the valley stretches itself out in front of you, no people, only grass, a derelict, transparent house, the walls disappearing, soon only a framework remains under the roof that disintegrates stone by stone. A pile of glass, an accumulation of materials, a defective angle, a distortion of the surrounding landscape. The loneliness that exists in some places. It is impossible not to be moved by it. It happens so abruptly. Maybe we have been there before, maybe he says that, maybe we talk about it, an everyday conversation, music on the car radio, voices coming and going. I remember we liked to sit and listen to the radio. But that is the past. The trips we take now are without purpose, we do not talk, we don’t really go anywhere, and it is just the trip for its own sake. But recently I have had a feeling that we are nevertheless bound for or at least looking for something. We drove through the forest a few days ago, and while we were still inside a canopy of leaves, it struck me that this, that the forest I saw, was an inherited visual impression, that it had always been there.

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