But not Sheldon. Sheldon did not go to that war. He was too young.
‘What I mean to say,’ says Rhea to Sigrid, ‘is that he’s an old, remarkable man who is coming undone at the end of a long and hard life, and he’s missing.’
Sigrid nods. Lars and Petter remain silent. Sigrid looks again at her notes, and then says, ‘I’d like to revisit the discussion of his dementia.’
‘Yes, OK.’
Sigrid notices a change on Lars’s face, but cannot make sense of it.
Rhea explains. ‘My grandmother died not long ago. Sheldon has been lost ever since. They were unusually close. Before she died, she told me he was suffering from dementia. She recommended I watch it and stay informed.’
‘This was in New York.’
‘Yes. I looked up the symptoms from the National Institute of Health in America.’
At this, and for the first time, Lars audibly snickered.
‘What?’ says Rhea.
‘You must admit that your grandfather had an answer to each of those symptoms.’
The conversation Lars is referring to took place three weeks ago outside Vestbanen near Aker Brygge in Oslo Harbour. The entire area was being developed. The Tourist Information Office had been moved out of the old train station and replaced by the museum for the Nobel Peace Prize. They sat at Pascal’s, with its excellent cakes and absurdly priced ice-cream served in pathetic plastic cups. A massive ocean liner was at anchor by Akershus Fortress, and a stream of large humans with cameras and appetites was approaching.
On seeing the hungry tourists, Sheldon pulled his $12 cup of ice-cream a little closer.
‘Papa, all I’m saying is that there are five symptoms, and we should consider them.’ Reading from a piece of paper, she said — in as cooperative and supportive a voice as she could muster — ‘First, asking the same questions repeatedly. Second, becoming lost in familiar places. Third, being unable to follow directions. Fourth, getting disoriented about time, people, and places. And fifth, neglecting personal safety, hygiene, and nutrition.’
It was Saturday morning, and the edge of spring was giving way to the long, lush days of Norway’s eternal summers.
Sheldon listened and nodded. Then he ran two fingers up the sides of the beer glass and collected the condensation. He closed his eyes and ran the cool water over his eyelids.
‘Ever do this? Feels great.’
‘Papa.’
‘What?’
‘Why do you keep buying beer if you never drink it?’
‘I like the colour,’ he said, his eyes closed tightly.
‘Do you have any thoughts about what I just said?’
‘Yup.’
‘Do you remember the question?’
That provoked him. Sheldon turned to Lars, who was attentive. ‘Watch this.
‘Number one. Getting people to repeat their own questions forces them to figure out what they’re asking. If you’re not willing to ask a question three times, then you don’t really want to know the answer. Number two, you have brought me to Norway. Nothing’s familiar. I can’t become lost in familiar places. I just become lost. Number three, I don’t speak Norwegian, so I can’t follow any directions. If I understood…
‘How did I do, Lars?’
‘Better than I could have done, Sheldon.’
Rhea remembers the story. But she says to him, in front of Sigrid, ‘He was lucid. He has powerful reasoning skills. He was showing off.’
Lars shrugs. ‘It worked on me.’
‘OK, maybe it isn’t dementia per se. But he’s odd. Really odd. And he’s increasingly talking to the dead.’
Even as she speaks, she accepts the doubts. Whatever is going on in his overtaxed mind is complicated. It comes and goes. She does know that Sheldon isn’t well. That Mabel’s death has fundamentally altered his place in this world. That he is unmoored. Beyond that, she can’t say.
Sigrid listens and then says to Lars, in English, ‘You don’t think it’s dementia.’
Lars taps his fingers on the table. He doesn’t want to disagree with Rhea. Not in public. Not about her own family. But he feels an obligation. Before saying it, though, he wonders whether he can set the scene so Rhea will arrive at the same truth herself. The moment can be hers.
‘Rhea told him something this morning. Something that affected him.’
Sigrid turns to Rhea and waits.
‘I had a miscarriage last night. They sent me home from the hospital. I was still in my first trimester. I told Papa this morning.’
It is Petter who responds to this. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
Rhea nods. She does not want to be the centre of attention.
Lars says, ‘We weren’t unprepared for this. But I think Sheldon was.’
Rhea says nothing. So he continues on.
‘I don’t think it’s dementia. Sheldon has outlived everyone he knows, including his own son and wife. I think he came to Norway because of the baby. For a chance to see life continue beyond him. But then the baby died.’
‘What do you think it is?’ Sigrid asks Lars.
‘I think it’s a kind of guilt. I think he is consumed by guilt for surviving. His son, Saul, Rhea’s father, for starters. Maybe also his older friends in World War II. His cousin, Abe. The Holocaust. People in Korea. His wife. This baby. I don’t think he can take any more guilt. Even with the Koreans. I know there’s some debate about whether he actually saw combat, but I think he did because he sees them hiding in trees. I don’t think they’re just any Koreans. I think he sees the people he killed, and feels bad about it. Even though it was a war.’
Rhea does not agree. ‘My grandfather does not feel guilty for surviving the Holocaust. Trust me. If anything, he feels guilty for not lying about his age and going to fight the Nazis.’
‘He was fourteen when America entered the war. He was a boy.’
‘Have you met him?’
Sigrid writes this down in her notebook, along with other observations about Rhea and Lars and the timing of the disappearance.
There is really only one last order of business.
‘What do you make of this?’ says Sigrid, handing the murder-scene note to Rhea.
The note rests lightly in Rhea’s hands as she reads and re-reads it.
‘It’s from my grandfather.’
‘And what do you think it says?’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘it isn’t so much what it says as what it means.’
‘Ya. OK.’
‘This is why Lars and I slightly disagree on Sheldon’s diagnosis.’
Sigrid takes back the note and reads it aloud as best she can, not knowing what accent it is meant to mimic:
