An excerpt from Blissful North

By Árpád Kun, Translated from Hungarian by Jozefina Komporaly

Grete lived in the same multi-story residential building adjacent to the shopping center as Arve but on a different floor. This floor wasn’t serviced by an elevator, so one had to make one’s way up there on foot. For this reason, the local government built a wheelchair ramp specifically for the disabled Grete so she could access her floor. 

Back in the autumn, when I was standing at the counter of my local job center, looking at a list of job openings at various homes for the elderly, and unable to settle for any, I interpreted the silence of the administrator at the other side of the counter as a form of rude rejection. My experience living in Benin was that, in such situations, people would tell you what was best and would try to get you to agree with them as vehemently as they could. Since then, I’ve learned that Norwegians would never make decisions for anyone else, and, wherever possible, would even refrain from dispensing advice. If, in the early days, I was unsure about some aspect of my job and asked my female colleagues for guidance, seven out of ten times, they’d shrug and advise me to do what I thought was best. The other three times, they’d ask me for clarifications, not quite getting the gist of my question. Either because my question wasn’t asked in the local dialect or because it didn’t fit any of the set answers they had already prepared. They were unfamiliar with the all-smiles-yet-reserved politeness of the French. In their contacts with one another, they were often quite crude, and their language was unfamiliar with formal ways of address. They addressed everyone as “you,” or in case they were in the mood to lavish some extra courtesy, they perhaps went as far as “hey, you.” This scrupulous non-interference was their way of keeping their distance from others, the equivalent of politeness and formal address in the French. And indeed, after I managed to shed the old habits I developed in Benin and became used to the Norwegian way of day-to-day interactions, this manner of keeping distance suited my introverted and unapproachable nature just fine.

So, I wasn’t holding my breath when I asked my colleague who was about to go on maternity leave for information on Grete. As I expected, she just flashed a smile followed by some noncommittal commonplace. 

But after a short silence, she suddenly continued in a soft voice. In a manner highly unusual for Norwegians, she warned me not to take the elevator by the main entrance because one couldn’t reach Grete’s floor from there, and I shouldn’t attempt to use the other staircase, either, as that side of the building didn’t have an elevator. She explained that, instead, I should walk past the rooster statue near the boat station on a safety island opposite the garage. I should go past the island and then turn onto the block. From there, I’d be able to see Grete’s wheelchair ramp that would lead to her floor from the back of the building. Once I made it to the ramp, I should park next to Grete’s Audi Kombi, modified for her disability requirements. I’d find her mailbox at the bottom of the ramp, and although my duties didn’t include dealing with her post, I should collect any newspapers and post to be found in the box and bring them up to the flat to save her the extra journey. 

At this point, a melodious squeaking could be heard from my colleague’s smock pocket. She grabbed her private mobile, tapped it to answer, and started talking. With her free hand, she supported her barrel-shaped, eight-month pregnant belly and, letting out a soft moan, slowly got up from the corner sofa and left the staff room, smiling on the phone all along. From my point of view, she walked straight into her maternity leave there and then, as I had never set eyes on her again.

I made it to the bottom of the ramp exactly as my colleague had suggested. It was only on the ramp, making my way up the interlinked steel plates, that I lost my sense of confidence I got from closely following the guidance I was given. From there, I had to follow my own instincts. The ramp swung slightly under the weight of my heavy boots. With each step, the ramp would spring back, though not in response to my gait but to the slower rhythm of the steel. It felt as if a giant backbone was undulating beneath me, and I found myself either lowered down or lifted up, with no connection to my actual movements. As I was making progress in a state of cumbersome hovering, I was reminded of an old bridge over a glacier that I had just crossed in order to get some salmon. I had no inkling that this ramp would not only take me to the required floor but also to another shore. 

In front of Grete’s door, there was an electric wheelchair that looked like a black leather armchair with a neck rest, equipped with four tiny wheels, a steering mechanism and a dashboard. From the back of the armchair, the battery’s meandering dark cable was plugged into the wall-mounted charger. Grete’s name, embroidered on a piece of patchwork, was hanging by the door. Above the door handle, a post-it note with faded handwriting read: “Ring the bell and come in!” followed by a cheeky smiley. 

My work as a domestic care assistant had taken me to several dozen homes across the county by then. I’d seen many hallways, but I haven’t felt as lost as I did when I was in Grete’s flat. It was as if I’d found myself standing in front of a distorting mirror in which all objects were shrunk. The shoe rack, crammed with tiny shoes, was at ankle height. The coatrack, laden with coats and jumpers, didn’t even reach my armpits. The top shelf of the built-in wardrobe, the door of which was ajar, was level with my chin. My head found itself at unreal heights, as if I was looking down at the objects—books, adverts, and a huge black horn case scattered on the floor—from the vantage point of the chandelier. But when I bent down for the blue overshoes—two of which were scrunched up by the umbrella stand, as in most homes—I suddenly felt as if I had sunk several floors. 

I took my time in shaking the snow off the deep ridges of my boots’ soles. Despite the encouraging note on the door, I found it difficult to make my way into the flat and put on the overshoes.

From the hallway, I headed to the open-plan kitchen-living room, from where I could hear that behind a side door, water was flowing from a tap. It was from there that a feeble female voice, resounding in the usual bathroom acoustics and echoing in the steam-filled air, responded to my loud greeting.

Emboldened by this response, I stepped forward. I ended up by the kitchen counter, which was situated level with my knees, and, for a moment, the sense of my own height made me dizzy. It wasn’t just the counter; all the kitchen furniture—the dresser, the table, and the chairs—were half the size of standard furniture. Even though the household items in sight were of normal size—there was a regular cup, teaspoon, plates, and kettle—in this environment they gave the impression of mere ornaments. 

I had the same awkward feeling in the doll’s house of Unni’s daughter, where I took shelter during my time as the tourist guide of the Ash Valley church and where I had never dared to have a stretch, be it while standing, sitting or lying down. My clumsiness had made me flounder, mindful not to whack down or break some toy. In this new environment, I found myself confused about my role again, unsure what to do. Despite the fact that my job justified my presence in this flat, I felt like an intruder, like an unknown fairy tale hero. Suddenly, the name “Pitch-Black” came to mind, a name that I came up with the night when the Huge Pebble rolled down the hill towards the Catalan tourist bus and only reached a standstill within half a meter of the tourists. It seemed to me that this name had once more become most fitting and relevant. 

I decided to squat next to the counter. I removed the two foil-covered lunchboxes and the pill dispenser from the red thermal bag that only five minutes ago was used for safekeeping some salmon and still smelled of fish, and put them on the counter together with the newspaper I found in the post box. An array of random objects was scattered about the counter. I removed last week’s empty pill dispenser from under the hair dryer and swept it into the thermal bag. 

While I was keeping busy with all this, Grete stepped out of the bathroom and stopped in the doorway.

One tends to recognize recurrent features in the faces of Rooster Hill residents. I was able to revisit, with slight variations, the same typical nose, mouth, eyes, and even face several times a day, first in the staff room on one of my colleagues, then on an elderly female patient, and finally on a baby at the grocer’s. In such situations, I could rest assured that various members of the same family were parading up and down in front of me. So far, I haven’t yet come across a double of Grete’s face though. Her features had been modified by illness and were just like the ones described by an English author in relation to patients suffering from the Sinyakov syndrome. Grete resembled the Tamil boy from Edinburgh, and looked like someone who could be his aunt. I was able to witness live the same radiance that emanated from the boy’s face, beaming on the badly laminated black and white picture. My mouth was wide open in amazement. Yet, I wasn’t so much fascinated by this similarity but by Grete’s sheer beauty.

She was wearing a floor-length spinach green dressing gown that concealed her feet altogether. Her tiny hands and lower arms didn’t reveal shorter limbs, but I noticed that her hips, which must have been quite narrow due to the absence of a hip bone, didn’t show their curves under the terry cloth fabric. 

She didn’t take her crutches with her to the bathroom; they were waiting for her, leaning against the doorframe. Standing on the threshold, Grete was unable to reach them, so she took another step. Seeing that she wasn’t relying on any physical support, it looked as if she had made the wrong move and her entire body was about to collapse. Yet this was none other than the quaintly alarming outcome of bones that were out of the ordinary. Before I could have grabbed her, she had already straightened her back and made a further step forward, her delicate hands holding on to the handle of her crutches. She tilted her torso a touch as she fitted her upper arms in the armrest. Her dense red hair cascaded forward and her full breasts which, following her morning shower, hadn’t yet been constrained by a bra, quivered heavily in her dressing gown. 

I have never liked people coming on to me, and in the case of women making advances, my entire body would feel strangled by anxiety and I’d want to flee at once. I’d feel as if wild beasts were charging at me, the kind of beasts that would chase me in my nightmares when I had to endure the occasional nighttime ejaculation and wake up with a pounding heart and loins drenched in sperm. At times, when the odd female colleague would cast an ambiguous glance at me at the hospital in Cotonou, I had the impression that I could even hear the howling of these wild beasts in the distance. As soon as I arrived in Europe, however, this changed at once. I have no idea why. The first time I noticed this was in Bordeaux, when talking to my father’s girlfriend Geneviève, I realized that I was able to smile back at a woman without feeling self-conscious. By the time I arrived at Rooster Hill, I no longer found my female colleagues menacing, though it was a relief to take note of the fact that they were routinely refraining from any physical contact. There were no hugs or kisses, like it was the custom in Benin. They’d only put their arms around one another if they wanted to congratulate someone, and even then, only for a passing moment, followed by a gentle peck on the cheek. As for me, during my six months here, nobody had as much as touched me by accident, so I had reasons to feel safe. This was of great help to me in not losing my nerve when I set eyes on Grete and realized how beautiful she was. This was the first time in my life that I allowed myself the pleasure of rejoicing at the sight of a woman, albeit from the safety of my role as a caretaker. 

We introduced ourselves in an amicable manner. I told her what was already obvious from my orange smocks and trousers, namely, that I was her new caretaker and that I had placed her lunch and pill dispenser on the kitchen counter. She thanked me duly for all this, which was rather unusual. She used the same polite formula that I had learned from a Norwegian language book back in Bordeaux, but in the meantime thought it obsolete since nobody had used it until now. 

I was still in the posture I adopted when unpacking the thermal bag, squatting down next to the kitchen counter, my eyes level with Grete’s. After exchanging a few polite sentences, the time came for me to stand up. So far, I hadn’t been fully aware of the most important bone abnormality of those suffering from the Sinyakov syndrome, despite this being often discussed in English-language case studies. For some reason, they didn’t mean much to me, and I glossed over this aspect. In this moment, however, I found myself confronted with it for real. I was confronted with the fact that, while I stood up and thus reached the height of an average person—even slightly taller than average—Grete didn’t, due to the fact that she was of short stature because of her illness. As I was on my way upwards, I felt dizzy again at the sight of this sudden change in level, and the half-scale furniture seemed to sink below me faster and lower than the first time round in the hallway. Having said that, I barely noticed this bout of vertigo, as I was overwhelmed by a much stronger emotion—a bitterness of sorts came over me with such force that I had to stifle the powerful sobs rising in my throat. 

I had no personal ties to Grete; I had never met her before, barely knew anything about her and my dealings with her were strictly professional. Yet, I felt as if it were my responsibility that she had been left down below, and as if my rise were some sort of a miraculous instant growth that she had been deprived of. I also felt that she had been of normal height at first, but then had sunken down as a result of some misfortune, thus being forced to live her life buried knee-deep in the ground. I couldn’t refrain from holding out my hand to her, as if I could free her from her dwarfism and had the powers to lift her out of this pit. But before I could have touched her, I came to my senses and suspended my arm held out in the air. Since I was caught off guard leaning forward anyway, I quickly came up with a cop-out and grabbed Grete’s pill dispenser that I had only recently placed on the counter and checked that it was showing the correct name.

It was indeed, Grete Mundal. I hadn’t made a mistake. 

The English translation was completed thanks to a grant from the Hungarian Petőfi Literary Fund.



About the author and translator:

Árpád Kun (born 1965) came to prominence as a poet in the mid-1980s while completing an undergraduate degree in Hungarian literature and history. Kun was editor of the publishing consortium Széphalom Könyvműhely, following which he studied French literature at the Sorbonne and worked at the University of Bordeaux. In 2006, he emigrated with his wife and four children to Norway, where he divides his time between literary activities and working as a home care assistant for the elderly. His publications include the volumes: Ilion (poetry, 1989); Bál [Baal] (poetry, 1991); Esőkönyv [The Book of Rain] (short fiction, 1995); Medárdus énekel [Medard Sings] (poetry, 1998);Véletlen madár [Random Bird] (poetry, 2003);Szülsz [You Give Birth] (poetry, 2011); Boldog észak. Aimé Billion mesél [Blissful North. The Chronicles of Aimé Billion] (novel, 2013); and Megint hazavárunk [Hope to See You Home Again] (novel, 2016). He is the recipient of several prestigious literary prizes, such as the Aegon Award and the Attila József Prize.

Jozefina Komporaly lectures at the University of the Arts London and translates from Hungarian and Romanian into English. She is editor and co-translator of the anthologies Matéi Visniec: How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Other Plays (Seagull Books, 2015) and András Visky’s Barrack Dramaturgy: Memories of the Body(Intellect, 2017), and author of numerous publications on translation and adaptation, including the monograph Radical Revival as Adaptation: Theatre, Politics, Society (Palgrave, 2017). Her translations appeared in Asymptote, Exchanges, Hungarian Literature Online, Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poet Lore, Trafika Europe, Words without Borders, World Literature Today, and were produced by [Foreign Affairs] London and Theatre Y and Trap Door Theatre in Chicago. Recent translations include Mr K Released by Matéi Visniec (Seagull Books, 2020 – shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize), The Glance of the Medusa by László F. Földényi (Seagull Books, 2020), and the collection Plays from Romania: Dramaturgies of Subversion (Bloomsbury, 2021). ​​Komporaly is a member of the UK Translators’ Association and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.