The Cold Song Read online

  “A magnificent novel, one of those novels that is so good that I wish I hadn’t read it yet, but still had it left to discover.”

  —Sydsvenskan (Sweden)

  “A dazzlingly well-turned book … With her new novel, Linn Ullmann shows that she has a piercing eye for present-day family life in the Nordic countries like few other contemporary writers.”

  —Kathrine Lilleør, Berlingske (Denmark)

  “Although her language sparkles and shines, although she has a ruthless eye for human failings, although she succeeds in imparting something vital to the vilest of relationships, I would still claim that Linn Ullmann’s strength lies in her structural command … Her distinctive quality as a writer is quite simply—grace. And there is nothing simple about that.”

  —Jan Arnald, Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)

  “A novel that makes you want to drop everything else. A highlight of the spring season.”

  —RBB Kulturradio (Germany)

  “Magnificently told by flashing back and forward in time, the novel is bleak, sad, emotional, and highly exciting.”

  —Berliner Morgenpost (Germany)

  “Some authors simply write well. Some characters just come to life. Some forms of discomfort, lies, and deception are given just the right distance and protection by two hard covers to be able to confront them. Linn Ullmann’s precise and distinctive prose is the stuff that makes a novel come alive.”

  —Andreas Wiese, Dagbladet, Best Books of the Year 2011 (Norway)

  “The Cold Song is fascinating, dense, profound.”

  —Maria Laura Giovagnini, Io Donna (Italy)

  “Psychologically sophisticated, captivating entertainment.”

  —Elle (Germany)

  “Reading The Cold Song was an unforgettable experience. The novel is a remarkably composed puzzle, where the fragmented structure is not an experiment in deconstructing the traditional novel form. The Cold Song is an ingenious game with structural elements. The characters … are real human beings and the depiction of their pain and sorrow serve as … an attempt at a healing process.”

  —ekultura.hu (Hungary)

  “The Cold Song is an intense and unsettling read.”

  —Kultblog.hu (Hungary)

  “Linn Ullmann condenses soft sounds, small gestures, and poetry into a splendid novel about the abyss of normality.”

  —Petra (Germany)

  “Compellingly told and thoroughly composed down to the most detailed ramifications.”

  —Schweiz am Sonntag (Germany)

  “Compelling. All the way to the last page.”

  —Constanze Alt, Ostthüringer Zeitung (Germany)

  “A skillfully constructed, exciting book about all that is kept secret in a family.”

  —Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)

  “A magnificent, psychologically profound family novel that shows how minor lapses, secrets, and repressed desires can cause a major tragedy.”

  —Annabelle (Switzerland)

  “Ullmann writes about human relationships with near psychological X-ray vision … Sentences are often gossamer light, but just as often bitingly acerbic and filled with complex emotions. Her choice of words take the reader by surprise … The Cold Song is a complex novel that shows how quickly things can disintegrate when one doesn’t pay attention … No matter how unpleasant the book may be to read (and it frequently is), one wishes to be part of Ullmann’s universe. Perhaps because she describes us all too well … Ullmann is compassionate and empathic, with a big heart for all of her characters. She scrutinizes the most wretched and painful sides of our existence, holding them up to the light and pressing our tender spots with her gentle touch.”

  —Ellen Sofie Lauritzen, Dagsavisen, Best Books of the Year 2011 (Norway)

  “The poignant and powerful story of a family … The Cold Song is the story of a dysfunctional family stumbling on, day by day … Shrouded in mystery, furtive, enigmatic. I, at least, found it difficult to put the book down … left tears in my eyes. Ullmann penetrates the vile, painful, and raw problems and challenges of human relations, and she does it with expertise. Pitch-black humor is one of her devices, and it is blacker in this novel than ever before.”

  —Bjarne Tveiten, Fedrelandsvennen, Best Books of the Year 2011 (Norway)

  “The Cold Song shows novelist Linn Ullmann at her very best.”

  —Geir Vestad, Hamar Arbeiderblad, Best Books of the Year 2011 (Norway)

  “Linn Ullmann has written a great and insightful novel … Every character is described with empathy and blindsiding psychological perception, with a story that is skillfully composed.”

  —Johannes H. Christensen, Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)

  “Linn Ullmann is a master at letting people and events hover and tremble between reality and something else … Has Linn Ullmann ever been so viciously funny as she is here?… The Cold Song has breadth, but also a compelling Nordic gravity.”

  —Lise Garsdal, Politiken (Denmark)

  “Masterfully written about fragile love, deception, and guilt, and about the difficult art of protecting what is most precious.”

  —Uppsala Nya Tidning (Sweden)

  “[Ullmann] is a skillful writer … If one were to perceive traces of a literary inheritance, contemporaries such as Siri Hustvedt and Joyce Carol Oates, or classic authors such as Virginia Woolf, would immediately come to mind.”

  —Västerbottens-Kuriren (Sweden)

  “A terrifying novel that is difficult to put down … Ullmann combines keen everyday observations with an obscure crime, but the dialogues also pose a number of recurring philosophical questions. Where is the border between a lie and a narrative?… an alternately riveting, humorous, and thought-provoking novel that captivates.”

  —Bjørn Gabrielsen, Dagens Næringsliv (Norway)

  “Like a detective story, the young girl’s fate is slowly revealed and the intensity increases. Not one word or phrase seems redundant, the words flow easily between the pages with exceptional precision. Almost understated, with bizarre and humorous undertones, we are drawn into an Ullmannesque universe that we don’t want to leave.”

  —Anja Rålm, VG, six out of six points (Norway)

  “Linn Ullmann casts a wonderfully caustic eye on human flaws … With elegant circular movements Ullmann writes her way into all that one cannot talk about in a family … Grief is rude and defiant in The Cold Song, giving the story a uniquely odious power. The novel also presents delightful reprises in which Ullmann revisits scenes, formulations, and memories, lending rhythm to the text and showing that there is no definitive ending to the story of a life … [Ullmann] stands more in the tradition of the great bourgeois novel (Balzac, Stendhal, Lagerlöf) … A trace of Virginia Woolf can be heard in The Cold Song … easy and compelling, [Ullmann] dissects human weakness, grief, and pain.”

  —Margunn Vikingstad, Dag og Tid (Norway)

  “In this book, Ullmann brilliantly exploits the full spectrum of possibilities offered by the polyphonic novel … The Cold Song is a poignant novel about silence, ingeniously composed with open spaces.”

  —Gro Jørstad Nilsen, Bergens Tidend (Norway)

  “The story of a family, in a class of its own.”

  —Sølvi Wærhaug, VG, Best Books of the Year 2011 (Norway)

  “Linn Ullmann’s The Cold Song is a sophisticated psychological thriller.”

  —Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden)

  Praise for A Blessed Child

  “With a light touch and tremendous empathy, Ullmann ranges among the perspectives of the three daughters … Ullmann’s sentences … are a pleasure to read and her deft modern sensibility is winning.”

  —New York Times

  “Linn Ullmann’s A Blessed Child is a like a fine, long eveni
ng of light. There are all sorts of colors on the horizon, and even when the darkness becomes visible, there is still a place to turn to. This is a book for fathers and daughters, and for anyone who’s beguiled by the country of family. The language is clear and runs deep. The story is profound and touching. Together, they announce another great storytelling feat by Linn Ullmann. She reminds me of Berger, of Aciman, of Tóibín: no greater praise.”

  —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

  Praise for Grace

  “Ullmann excels just as much as a satirist as a psychologist … passages here carry faint echoes of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse on the Baltic breeze … First affecting, then alarming, sometimes acerbically comic, A Blessed Child has an exhilarating candor and clarity in its grasp of family, period, and place.”

  —Boyd Tonkin, literary editor, Independent on Sunday (UK)

  “A delicate, haunting portrait of a fainthearted man trying his best to meet the end of life—and love—with a modicum of dignity and, yes, grace.”

  —Bruce Bawer, New York Times Book Review

  “Ullmann’s mesmerizing, spare novel is a robust yet delicate account of that most prosaic, mysterious event of all. Comparable to Philip Roth’s magisterial Everyman, the humor is drier, the poignancy more overt, yet it is equally, quietly impressive.”

  —Cathrine Taylor, The Guardian

  Praise for Stella Descending

  “Exquisitely written … As hallucinatory as August heat.”

  —Washington Post

  “[Ullman]’s gift is for weaving the banal details of love, career, and family with the mystic world of dreams and ghosts into one seamless fabric … The hypnotic allure of the story adds to the reader’s eagerness to return to Stella and share the enigma of her final flight.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Weird and wonderful … Ullmann has effortlessly established a distinct literary voice.”

  —Elle

  “Magical in its imagery … Extraordinary.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Surrealistic … in the original 1920s sense: as a work of art that blurs the borders between mundane reality and the reality of fantasies and dreams … Where Ullmann differs is in her humor … her snappy prose and cheeky attitude.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Exquisite … The atmosphere and taut pacing make this an icily swift read, one whose chill lingers longer than a Scandinavian winter.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  Praise for Before You Sleep

  “A perceptive and sparkling new creation.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “The gift Ullmann gives her readers is her intelligence and wisdom about desire, love, and motherhood, and scene after scene of poignant, prickly prose.”

  —Boston Globe Sunday

  “Her storytelling skills and sheer joy in performance shine on every page.”

  —Vogue

  “Strikingly original … Reading this indelibly etched portrait of a family in crisis should keep many a reader awake, trying to finish it in one sitting before falling into their own restless sleep.”

  —Seattle Times

  ALSO BY LINN ULLMANN

  A Blessed Child

  Grace

  Stella Descending

  Before You Sleep

  Copyright © Forlaget Oktober AS, Oslo 2011

  Originally published in Norwegian as Det dyrebare

  by Forlaget Oktober, Oslo, in 2011

  English-language translation copyright © Barbara J. Haveland and Linn Ullmann, 2013

  This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

  Lyrics to “Sweetheart Like You” on this page–this page by Bob Dylan. “Dead Man’s Chest” on this page–this page from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Lines on this page from Henry Purcell’s King Arthur, Third Act, by John Dryden. Verse on this page from “Jesus Bids Us Shine,” words by Susan Bogert Warner, music by Edwin Othello Excell.

  Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas

  Illustrations by Andreas G and Gary R

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016.

  Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Ullmann, Linn, 1966–

  [Dyrebare. English]

  The cold song : a novel / by Linn Ullmann; translated from the Norwegian by Barbara J. Haveland.

  pages cm

  “Originally published in Norwegian as Det dyrebare by Forlaget Oktober, Oslo, in 2011.”

  ISBN 978-1-59051-667-6 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-59051-668-3 (e-book)

  1. Young women—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Murder—Fiction. 3. Families—Fiction. 4. Norway—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Haveland, Barbara, translator. II. Title.

  PT8951.31.L56D9713 2014

  839.82’374—dc23

  2013025382

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  v3.1_r1

  Niels

  For

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  I: The Treasure

  II: Your Light Shines More

  III: Sweetheart Like You

  IV: Apple of My Eye

  V: Jenny

  Halftones

  About the Author

  ’Tis Love that has warm’d us?

  —JOHN DRYDEN

  JENNY BRODAL HAD not had a drink in nearly twenty years. She opened a bottle of Cabernet and poured herself a large glass. She had imagined the warmth filtering down into her stomach, the tingling in her fingertips, but there was none of that, no warmth, no tingling, nothing, so she drained the glass and waited. Surely there would be something. Jenny looked at the open bottle on her bedside table. She had never said never! She had taken one day at a time, one day at a time, and never, never, said never.

  She was in her bedroom, sitting on the edge of her large four-poster bed, almost done now. She’d put on her makeup, she’d put on a dress. She still had on thick, gray woolly socks, the ones that Irma had knitted. She looked at her feet. They looked twice as big in those socks and they were still cold, despite the socks. There was also the lump on the side of her right big toe, she could feel it, sometimes red, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, and she dreaded taking off the socks and thrusting her feet into her slender, high-heeled sandals.

  She looked at the shoes, paired up like well-behaved children on the floor by her bed. Such pretty shoes, the color of nectarines, from the sixties, she remembered the store where she had bought them. Jenny poured herself another glass. The trick was to get the wine right down to her feet. She had never said never. She had said one day at a time.

  For one, she would have to give a speech. There were other things too. Jenny recalled a list of very good reasons she had given for not wanting to go through with this celebration, which was the word everyone kept insisting on using, and then she tried to remember why nobody had listened to her.

  Jenny stood up; twirled in front of the mirror on the wall. The black dress fit beautifully over her breasts. Yes. And her cheeks flushed rather nicely. And everything was ready. Soon, after one m
ore glass, she would take off her socks and put on the sandals.

  It was the fifteenth of July 2008 and Jenny’s seventy-fifth birthday. Mailund, the big white mansion-like house where she had grown up after the war, was filled with flowers. She had lived in this house almost all her life, in good times and bad, and now forty-seven guests dressed in their summer finery were on their way here to salute her.

  MILLA, OR WHAT was left of her, was found by Simen and two of his friends when they were digging for buried treasure in the woods. They didn’t know what it was they had found. But they knew it wasn’t the treasure. It was the opposite of treasure. Later, when asked to explain to the police and their parents why they had been in the woods, Simen found this hard to do. Why had they started digging in that particular clearing? Under that particular tree? And what exactly had they been looking for?

  Two years earlier, in July 2008, everyone had been out searching for Milla. Far and wide, over land and sea, in ditches and trenches, in the sand hills out on the point and all around the forbidding cliffs, in the pile of rubble behind the old school and in the empty, tumbledown houses at the end of Brage Road where grass grew out of the windows and no child was allowed to go. Simen remembered scouring every inch of town, thinking she might just be hiding somewhere waiting to be found, and that maybe if he looked really hard, he’d be the one to find her.

  Everyone had searched for Milla, even the boy known as K.B., the one who was later arrested and charged with her murder, searched for her, and for two years she had lain buried under that tree in the woods, unfound, covered by dirt and grass and moss and twigs and stones until she had almost turned to dirt herself, all except for her skull and bits of bones and her teeth and the long dark hair, which was no longer long and dark, but wispy and withered, as if it had been yanked up out of the ditch, roots and all.