Notes from a trailing spouse

(In 2011, during the terror attacks at Utøya in Oslo, I was living in Prague and could only watch from a distance, calling friends and family, trying to understand everything without understanding anything at all. A huge bomb in Oslo? A killing spree at a youth party event, not far from where my father lived? But why? In heaven’s name, why??

My wife, as the chargé d’affaires at the embassy, since the ambassador was away, went on Czech TV as Norway’s representative and spent her days taking in flowers from outside the embassy and shaking sad hands and getting sad phone calls, thousand kilometres away from friends and family and random strangers trying their best to support each other and be there for each other.

A few weeks later, she gave a speech at a memorial in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. And since she wouldn’t be able to do it without breaking down and crying, it was me who read the names of all the 77 victims, one by one, while a woman from the embassy lit all 77 candles behind me, one by one by one.

This is one version of this story. I read it once, at a poetry open mic in Geneva. I broke down. I cried.

But I’d do it again. To remember. To never forget.)

***

***

Mona Abdinur, I say.

My voice shoots off the cold white walls

and the cold white columns

and disappear through the multicoloured profets and disciples and saints

in the stained glass windows high above us.

She lights one candle.

Haji Ahmed, I say.

A man in a bunad

A Norwegian folk costume

Sighs softly,

And i think to myself

Why a bunad?

Why on earth a bunad? Here?

She lights another candle.

Thomas Margido Antonsen, i say.

The priest looks at me, then down at his shoes, then up at the ceiling.

His eyes are solemn, somber and solemn,

And when he blinks

His jaw twitches ever so slightly.

She lights a third candle and glances over to the end of the row.

There are 74 candles left.

I stop, swallow.

And continue.

Pamela Porntip Ardam

Modupe Ellen Awoyemi

Lene Maria Bergum

Kevin Daae Berland

18 years. 19. 16. 21. 15. 19. 15.

***

A man holds a yellow umbrella high above his head.

DANTES TOURS it says on one side  —

and on the other, VEDERE IL MONDO.

There is no rain, and there is no sun,

just soft grey clouds and a pleasing, life affirming 20-21 degrees,

but he keeps on flying his umbrella

and keeps on walking toward the huge gothic building inside the castle ground.

Ecco la cattedrale di San Vito, he says loudly

as a group of stiff legged, white haired, chicken chatty men and women gather round him,

short of breath but long in the tooth.

Ooooh, they say and point their cameras and gazes upward.

Magnifico! Splendido! Impressionante!

Look at those gargollas! Look at that spire!

Sorry, I say and try to pass an especially stiff legged and impressed couple.

But they do not move.

There is a sign with a Norwegian flag at the entrance.

The man with the yellow umbrella points to it

and says something about evento and chiusa

and something something,

and a soft murmur of aaahs and sighs spread through the crowd.

The especially stiff legged couple sighingly cross themselves heavenward.

Scusi, I say and try to walk around them.

Chiusa, the man in the yellow umbrella bellows and taps the sign. Evento!

Eh, I say. Norvegia.

Norvegia, the man repeats once, then once more.

Their chitter and chatter dwindle and die and

as they bow their heads ever so slightly and let me pass,

their sighs and sad ahs bounce off the cold, grey walls and cold grey gargoyles

and up into the thin air,

where we all must go when it ends in the end for all,

when we end in the end.

Povero ragazzo!

***

Trond Berntsen. I read.

She lights another candle.

Sverre Flåte Bjørkavåg, I read.

Torjus Jakobsen Blattmann

Carina Borgund

Johannes Buø

The bluish smoke from 13 white candles

Rise and disappear

In the thick thin air

We glance over to the end of the row

There are 64 candles left.

And she must use a new match.

77 bodies not moving anymore.

77 holes in the cold cold Norwegian ground

77 stiff legged stiff armed stiff bodied bodies completely completely out of breath

For ever and ever

And here I am in the cathedral of Prague, trying to give hope, when there is none.

Lasciate ogni speranza, i whisper to myself

And continue.

Sondre Furseth Dale

Monica Iselin Didriksen

Gizem Dogan

Shot. Shot. Shot. Drowned. Shot. Shot. Shot.

Look at those gargoyles. Look at them go.