On Silence and Loneliness

What happens to a couple when each of the partners keeps buried deep down old secrets that they cannot or do not know how to share? And how will two spouses who have seen their children grow and then leave home, and who have never had anything close to a group of friends, deal with aging and loneliness? These are some of the questions that „Days in the History of Silence”, the novel written by the Norwegian writer Merethe Lindstrøm, poses for its readers.

Published in 2011 and having since been awarded prestigious literary prizes, translated forthwith into several foreign languages, this novel, which has compelled recognition from critics and readers alike, is centred on the narrative account of Eve, a former teacher who looks back on the years of her marriage to Simon (a physician more than ten years her senior) and on the big events or lesser moments that have impacted on their lives. Drawing on the narrative pretext of Simon’s gradual (but ever more conspicuous) withdrawal into silence, Eva remembers particular things while trying, on the one hand, to find an explanation for her husband’s incapacity/ inability to communicate and, on the other hand, to come to terms, inasmuch as it is possible, with this new way of life. She thus recounts how, years ago, when their three daughters were still little girls, a young man broke into their house and Eva thought that their tranquil existence had ended and even felt that her very life was under threat. Or how both she and Simon had befriended their former Latvian housekeeper but, as things had taken an unexpected turn, they had to let her go and cut off all ties with her. Nothing spectacular here, by all appearances. On the face of it, theirs seems to be a calm, ordinary life. It is just that beyond appearances lies hidden everything and the readers will learn that behind the tranquillity and serenity of this family there are shocking, disquieting details, well-kept secrets, guilt that has never been fully acknowledged, hesitations and doubt. And above all, silence. A silence that Simon eventually chooses to surround himself with, a silence whereby he literally detaches himself from the world, severing all communication with the others, including his wife, who will more than once confess that she is (almost) baffled by this situation. ‘I need to tell someone how it feels, why it is so difficult to live with someone who has suddenly gone silent. It is not just the sense that he is no longer there. It is the sense that neither are you anymore.’

And this silence is but the last stand in a personal defence system that, from a given moment, has failed to defend anything anymore. Because, if in their youth Eva and Simon had kept their secrets both from each other and from all the ones around them, the passing of the years and the implacable aging have made it obvious that this strategy has clearly not been the solution. In any case, it has not been the right one. Eva’s great secret – which even Simon found out only years after they had married – is that in her teenage years she had given birth to a child, a boy whom she had forsaken and given up for adoption. Simon’s great secret – which Eva knows, but which they have consented not to share with their three daughters – is that he is of Jewish descent and was born in a Central-European country; moreover, during World War II, in order to save themselves from the Nazis, he and his entire family had been forced to hide in some secret rooms in an attic, described somehow along the already familiar lines of Anne Franck’s “Diary”. Traumas, loss, forsaking. Furthermore, above all that, silence. The silence that crept into the couple at first, to then touch on the relationships with those around them and with society at large, even with the three daughters who, oblivious to everything that has happened, simply cannot figure out what is going on.

But it so happens that at a certain moment Eva finds it too hard to live like this anymore and the silence that she is surrounded by becomes unbearable. So that she will look for a way out. Certainly, at first she will do it by revisiting the past. And then by discussing with a priest to – maybe – unburden her heart. Or by staring at the faces of the young people whom she passes by, in the hope of finding in one of them something that might bring back the son she had abandoned so many years before. Everything becomes all the more complicated as the doctors to whom she takes Simon to see are his very younger colleagues – Simon being a physician, keen on his profession and utterly convinced about what used to be his calling. And apparently what he suffers from is not a disease of the body – albeit one ravaged by old age – but rather one of the soul: a soul so enfeebled, pained and lonesome that it can no longer find the resources whereby he might overcome the confines of the silence which he has taken upon himself and which now dominates his entire life, or whatever is left of it. Moreover, the breakup with Marija, who was initially a mere housekeeper, to then become a family friend, perhaps the only friend Eva and Simon have ever had, has left both of them emotionally scarred. Marija had entered their lives to help them with housekeeping, but she had little by little become indispensable to them, not just for the upkeep of the house, but mainly for the optimism boost she had brought into a family so immersed in reclusiveness, failure and doubt. And her chattering, her excitement over who knows what – be it a book or certain historical details – had enlivened Eva and Simon and had helped alleviate their acute sense of old age. Unexpectedly, however, the entire trust, warmth and friendship crumbled like a shifty edifice built on quicksand, Marija was fired and the two were left alone once again – and thenceforward silence seemed to be the only solution left for Simon – one that imperceptibly became a genuine weapon threatening to destroy whatever was left of the mutual trust in that marriage.

After the novel was published, most literary critics referred to it as a work of fiction that was impressive in its apparent simplicity and intentional monotony, commending the writer’s knack at writing a painfully delicate story that touched on human frailty and on all the vulnerabilities that people try to hide or to forget, but which nevertheless surface when they least expect it. Because the past abides, however much one might try to ignore it. It is left behind, indeed. But it is nevertheless forever present in people’s souls. A quiet drama about estrangement and seclusion in a couple, depicted in common words and small details, evincing an amazing mastery of detail (previously practised by Merethe Lindstrøm in her volumes of short-stories) as well as a rare psychological and atmospheric insight, and told with a simplicity of narrative means that is irresistible, all the much so as it is so unwonted in the oftentimes highly experimental contemporary fictional landscape.

„Days in the History of Silence” explores with great artistry the themes of the passage of time and of silence, as well as the forms they can embrace: from the games of the children who would keep silent until the key word has been discovered to the silence foisted by the harsh realities of war, for instance, to silence perceived as the ultimate solution (to a couple’s problems, in this particular case) or to the punitive silence that Eva resorts to as of a certain moment, especially because of her pain (albeit never acknowledged as such) over having forsaken her son years ago. And far from bringing relief, these instances of silence merely wrap up, like an old shroud, resentment and new dramas, they conceal fears and reticence, failing to ever provide a cure or hope of any emotional alleviation. “When he came back home we fixed dinner together, in silence, or in a silence that seemed to comprise an intense, persistent but low-frequency sound, like a repetition.” In spite of her apparent calm, all the turmoil in Eva’s soul tugs at her heartstrings, like calm waters that dig deep, eventually opening the way to a very likely fall into the abyss. Will this woman manage to overcome her predicament and to find a way out of the highly complicated situations she finds herself in? “In the evening we read, each seated on one’s chair, in the dining-room. We postponed the moment. When we started talking again, it was a mere possibility. ‘By discussing, we will slip into that space’, I thought, ‘where we will regain everything, who we really used to be. What we had been trying to avoid.”

Merethe Lindstrøm, „Days in the History of Silence”/ „Zile din istoria liniştii”, translation into Romanian by Ana Suărăşan, Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2021

Translated into English by Mirela Petraşcu