igsung so
the roof and the big beam
the studio and the stair down
23
At eighteen, Malin stops visiting Voss as she leaves for university. She is studying art history. Postmodernists like David Hockney had always interested her. Wait, Alex Colville too? She can’t be too sure. It is their expression of the mundane that draws her in. So flat, so good. Every summer she works as a clerk at a small gallery in town in lieu of Voss. Paintings of water, boats and lighthouses – too many lighthouses. She doesn’t care for them. It is almost too real. Her third summer at the gallery, she receives a call from her brother. Malin’s mother has died. The funeral is next week in Voss. When she arrives at her mother’s house all the family is there to greet her. Malin’s grandparents, her brother, two aunts, four uncles, six cousins she has never met. Hellooo. Even her father is there. All of them talk. About this and that, about things. She is exhausted from the flight and politely asks where her room is. There are no more free rooms. Not great, she thinks. There is a small hostel down the road. It has two roofs; you can’t miss it, they say. She recalls the house immediately. The pool, she thinks. Down the street she goes, then, stepping through the familiar flagstones, she arrives at the covered opening once again.This time, she enters the building through the doors on her right. She remembers these beams over the porch. And the large laminated beam that bisects the room in perfect symmetry. Malin looks around the lspace. Mostly empty. A few chairs around the fireplace, that’s about it. Was there a party?
The next morning, Malin is awake by six. Jet lag. The family is meeting at the house at ten. She walks back to reception for a towel. Empty again. The silence is overwhelming. A curved concrete staircase leads down to the basement. Through the window on her right, she watches the ground rise above her as she descends. Down. At the foot of the steps, she looks back up at the beamed ceiling. Pretty freaking tall. Straight ahead is the pool lit by the morning sun. There are no orthogonal corners in the basement. All filleted. Light bends around its corners, showing her where to go. Left is a corridor. Shimmering, wavering sunlight reflects off the pool onto its smooth tiled walls. Refractions, she thinks. She continues her way along; at the end she hears voices. To the voices she goes and finds a bright large room with six dancers, focussed and beautiful. She watches them in silence from the corner of the room, and waits for ten o’clock. Lisa Ullmann teaching Meg Tudor Williams, Lorn Primrose, Mary Elding, Valerie Preston and Warren Lamb.
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