Brightly Shining

“Standing out here, are we?” the caretaker said.

He took up position at his pillar, taking a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. And I stood where I always stood, I answered as I always used to answer.

“Yes,” I said.

“You know that’s not allowed?” the caretaker said.

I gave him the reply I’d learned from Dad.

“Rules are made to be broken.”

It was snowing a little. Behind us, someone was shouting eeny meeny miny moe! The caretaker stooped and lit his cigarette. Then we picked up our conversation.

“You know that’s not allowed?” I said.

“Rules are made to be broken,” the caretaker said. “Did you give away all your food again?”

I nodded. The squirrel had already been, Tøyen’s only squirrel and its finest. It knew when break time was, and then it came. The caretaker held the cigarette between his lips and took his packed lunch out of his pocket. He opened the foil, split the börek in two, and passed me one still-steaming half. His wife was very good at wrapping.

“It’s the circle of life,” the caretaker said. “You give to the squirrel, I give to you.”

“What’s the circle of life?” I said.

“Philosophy,” said the caretaker. “Here I am a caretaker, you know. But in my home country I was a great thinker.”

He turned and blew the smoke away from me.

“That’s the good thing about being an immigrant,” he said. “You can always tell people what you were in your home country.”

“But you’re pulling their legs?” I said.

“Never,” he said. “Well, actually, in my home country I was one of the country’s greatest leg-pullers. I won a competition. The National Leg-Pulling Championships.”

“Gosh,” I said.

“Anyway,” he said. “Have you seen that flyer over there?”

And he pointed with the cigarette between his fingers.

Wanted: Christmas Tree Seller, it read. You Are: Conscientious. Responsible. Outdoorsy.

*

It was taped to a lamppost. At the bottom were strips of paper with a telephone number.

“Might be of interest?” the caretaker said.

“I don’t think ten-year-olds can get jobs, can they?” I said.

“It’s not you I was thinking of,” the caretaker said.

He went up to the lamppost and tore off one of the strips, and came back and put it in my hand.

“Show that to your dad,” he said.

Snowflakes were melting around the bit of paper in my palm.

“And if he does apply for the job, tell him to say he knows Alfred,” said the caretaker. “He’s the one who delivers the Christmas trees for them.”

“But is that true?” I said.

“True enough,” the caretaker said. “I know Alfred, you know me, and your dad knows you. That’s the circle of life.”

I nodded.

“While we’re at it,” said the caretaker, “you might as well take the whole thing.”

And he went back over, picked off the tape, and rolled the flyer into a scroll.

“It’s not allowed, putting up flyers here,” he said.

“But what if somebody else wants to apply for the job?” I said.

The caretaker tucked the scroll into my jacket pocket. Snowflakes were landing on his small woolly hat. “Exactly,” he said.

“You’re looking at a great thinker here.”

__________________________________

From Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi (trans. Caroline Waight). Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. All rights reserved. Translation copyright © 2024 by Caroline Waight.