A Great Deserted Landscape (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading) by Kjell Askildsen Page A

later, I asked for a pill. She said it was too early. I insisted, and she removed my sunglasses. Don’t do that, I said. I closed my eyes. She put them back on. Are you in a lot of pain? Yes, I said. She left. She returned soon after with a pill and a glass of water. Propping me up by my uninjured shoulder, she put the pill in my mouth and held the glass to my lips. I could smell her scent.
    Not long after, my mother, my two brothers and my sister-in-law came back from the funeral. And Helen’s father, her two sisters, and an aunt I hardly knew, arrived a little after that. Everyone came over and said a few words to me. The pill was beginning to take effect, and I lay hidden behind the dark sunglasses feeling like a godfather. I didn’t feel it necessary to say too much, naturally enough everyone credited me with profound grief, there was no way they could know I was lying there feeling immense indifference. And when Helen’s father came up to me and said something or other, I felt something approaching satisfaction thinking about how, now that Helen was dead, he was no longer my father-in-law, and Helen’s sisters were no longer my in-laws either.
    A little later my brother’s wife and Helen’s sisters began putting out plates and cutlery on the long garden bench below the veranda, and every time they went past me on the way into the living room, they nodded and smiled, even though I pretended not to see them. Then I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember is the buzz of conversation down in the garden, and I could see their heads, nine heads hardly moving. It was a peaceful scene, those nine heads in the shade of the big birch tree, and at the end of the table, facing me: Sonja. After a while I raised my arm, to attract her attention, but she didn’t see me. Right after that my youngest brother stood up and made his way towards the veranda. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I heard him stop up for a moment as he passed me, and I thought: we are completely helpless.
    Eventually they got up from the table, and the entire time they were all, with the exception of Mom and Sonja, getting ready to go, I lay with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep. Then Mom emerged from the living room and came over to me. I smiled at her, and she asked if I was hungry. I wasn’t. Are you in pain? she asked. No, I said. What about on the inside? she said. No, I said. Well, she said and fixed the sheet I had over me, even though it was straight. Would you sooner be off home? I asked. Why? she replied, do you not want me here? Of course, I said, I just thought you might miss Dad. She didn’t reply. She went over and sat on the wicker sofa. Just then Sonja appeared. I removed my sunglasses. She had a wine glass in her hand. She gave it to Mom. I’d like one as well, I said. Not with pills, she said. Don’t be silly, I said. Just one glass then, she said. She left. Mom sat looking out over the garden, the wine glass in her hand. Is this all yours now? she asked. Yes, I said, ownership by conveyance. There’ll be a lot of emptiness, she said. I didn’t reply, I wasn’t sure what she meant. Sonja came out with two glasses, she placed one down on the nest of tables beside Mom. She came over to me with the other, held me by the shoulder, and brought the glass to my lips. She bent over more than the last time, and I could glimpse her breasts. As she was taking the glass away, our eyes met, and I don’t know, maybe she saw something she hadn’t noticed before, because something flashed in her eyes, something resembling anger. Then she smiled and went over to sit beside Mom. Cheers, Mom, she said. Yes, said Mom. They drank. I put on my sunglasses. Nobody spoke. I didn’t find it a very comfortable silence, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. There are no birds here, said Sonja. There are none around our place either, said Mom. Apart from seagulls. There used to be swallows, lots of swallows, but