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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
A spellbinding, darkly poetic literary novel that plunges us into the inner life of America's first female serial killerSeventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever - she can't quiet the screaming world inside her. Following the brutal end of an intense affair, she flees Norway for America to begin a new life as Bella. She tries to settle first with her sister and then with a husband, but the restless pulse of her desire and fear won't let her keep still. As Bella seeks refuge in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love ruptures into violence.In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland writes her way into the tumultuous inner life of Brynhild Størset, the Norwegian woman who would become Belle Gunness - one of America's most notorious female serial killers. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men dares to imagine one woman's capacity for ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.
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Seitenzahl: 206
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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To my dearest love, E.
Love tends to go ever further and further,
but there is a limit.
When the limit is passed
love turns to hate.
To avoid this change
love has to become different.
simone weil “Love,” in Gravity and Grace
I lived to lift you up
But who would lift me up?
When you were up among the clouds
And I was lying here on the ground
molly sandén, “Without You”
CONTENTS
BABY
SKANDINAVEN NORWEGIAN-LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER, CHICAGO, 1904–1908
Offer of Matrimony – Farmer, 26, in N. Dakota, Few Aquaintances, seeks to correspond with Scandinavian Girl or Widow. Financial situation not Important. Serious Replies only. Include photo.
Offer of Matrimony – Bachelor, 30, good-looking, Affluent, lives in a City, wishes to correspond with a Girl under 30 who knows how to appreciate the value of a Beautiful Home. Send photo in first Letter.
Offer of Matrimony – Widower, 45, looking to meet a Girl or childless Widow of Norwegian background, between 25 and 40. Strong references available and required. I can provide a good home free of cares since I am in good Financial circumstances. Address available from this Paper.
CITY OF ANGELS, CALIFORNIA, 1915
Tongues of flame flickered in the fireplace, hot and silent. Belle needed a window to rest her cheek on, to cool her skin, glowing red, fresh as dew, calm and hot. These little mustache hairs, she ran her fingers over her lips and heard her murmuring lungs. She lit a cigarette and looked out at the city. The enormous oak tree in the evening sun reached its long, gnarled roots along the wall and into the ground; the roots coiled around the fence, crept out under the grass. Clotheslines ran between the branches, sheets and panties flapping gently in the wind.
There are things I can’t ever admit, she whispered, things that are too big, too much, she could hardly breathe, that could destroy me. The words grabbed her by the throat, Belle didn’t know when it was all going to snap, but she knew it would. A bullet, an inverted lung, a postscript to a thousand wars, tears ran down her face, there’re too many of you. She felt her stomach turn, in the darkness, one muscle after the other.
The evening sun was low in the sky, her upper lip had chapped and split right down the middle, she took a deep drag of the cigarette; little words, almost a little scream, filled her mouth between the smoke and the teeth, tickling her gums, forcing their way out between her slack lips, no one who loves with their whole self can survive it. The waves of the Pacific rolled restlessly up onto the shore, the dark shimmer shone up toward her, and her voice filled the whole room, a truth so huge that it stood in everything else’s way. The words reached toward the window, there was something about the little wrinkles around her eyes, her skin’s little traces of everything that had happened, of time’s furrowed face, of all the problems lurking in her lungs, Belle felt it with perfect clarity, the shimmer, the salt water almost blinding her, there’re too many of you.
RØDDE FARM, 1876
Brynhild’s head was wrapped in darkness. It was being pushed down into the pillow, face-first. All the colors piled up, her heart beat hard, a pulsing knot of muscle in the middle of the sunset, throbbing red, glowing hot. Everything she was going to see and feel, face-first. Everything she was going to experience. Brynhild slipped back and forth between sweat and dream, floated in darkness as spit dribbled down from her open mouth. The bed creaked, she tensed every muscle in her body and raised her head to the window, the tiniest little movement, it took all she had. Brynhild saw the starry sky prickling, she filled her lungs with air before sinking back down onto the mattress. The dim light of the paraffin candles reached into the room, covered the walls with flickering shadows. Brynhild saw the outlines of her own body against the wall, intermittent, layered, she felt him on top of her, breath on the back of her neck, tongue drawing new lines there.
Brynhild had taken her clothes off so fast, seventeen years old, so gentle and good, so ready for the world, she’d been ready since the second she saw him, when she straddled his lap, I know you want me. Desires erupted from nowhere, glowing, sudden, the candlelight fluttered in the window frame and there, then, they hovered in the flame, afire and flowing. This was love. No one could tell her otherwise. God was here, so close, and an oily black light filled the bedroom. A thick sauce of something manmade tossed and turned on the mattress. He was so taut and bright, his worthless beautiful body, there was no doubt about it, she loved this man. She felt it in her bones, the craving in her belly, the colors diluting themselves on their own, one sensation slipping unresistant into the other no beginning no end all there in one big pool of sweaty muscles and blurry passings back and forth. Brynhild had undone her braid and her hair streamed down over her shoulders and he’d looked at her sitting on top of him with her starry blue eyes in that milk-white face, those pinkish cheeks, pale freckles, brown hair everywhere, she had bloomed and opened like a dark flower. The anticipation in two strange eyes, that color palette, all that softness and innocence laid so bare. And the sky really had fallen down to earth that night, pressing down on the house, it had pricked against Brynhild’s skin and she’d felt the stars on her eyes, they’d stung and burned, there was so much hope, endless hope, in a dark blue sky.
A new canvas had been stretched onto the frame, the black dirty love-sweat had scattered its seed, the rich farmer’s son from Selbu had walked straight into the attic room, straight between her two half-open lips, straight into her open mouth. He’d taken her into his arms and she’d leaned into him and he’d seduced her with both hands. A touch that made her melt, rocking hips, she took, he gave, convulsing, bit by bit, she lay there for days, shoved into the darkness. That’s how it happened, she’d been raised up high in the name of love and now she was vibrating, she couldn’t stop trembling. A gentle breeze drifted through the curtains, I can die now, but she didn’t die, she was breathing, she panted like a wet little dog, glowing with the morning sun right in her face.
Young Brynhild quivered against the sheets, all alone, she was so far from home, from mom and dad and the sheep up on the hill, she could feel it down in her bones, the fumbling, all the uncertainty, everything her eyes had seen the night before. It was a fairy tale, red like the dawn, sheets soaked and stained in a hundred different shapes. Brynhild traced the outlines of the stains with her finger, the spots clearly drawn in the sharp morning light, and she wiped her hand on her thigh. Everything she’d seen the night before, everything that had no words for it, the intense eyes resting on her. Broiling sunbeams pierced the window, thoughts sat in the middle of her head, her ears were listening for the least little movement, the thread of life was stretched tight.
Firstborn came back, a huge mass of skin and a wide white smile, so loving and strict, so strong, so addicted to his own desire. This man with pale hair and the smell of dirt and soft leather, boots that squeaked and scratched against the bedframe. Brynhild’s body felt the benediction, the weight in the darkness, the golden shimmer in the heart, it went from soft to hard so fast she didn’t realize what had happened. The dark passion when there was no more daylight, hands that could so suddenly ball into fists. Everything that changed as soon as she wasn’t looking. Little negotiations every single time. All the colors up against her eyes. The forever-warm body. Her head pushed down into the pillow every night. Mouth open till it poured and she had to swallow. The jolting ran through her like night-black shivers through the room.
Brynhild lay sunk into the mattress. She lay there with the farmholder class on top of her, a defenseless condition, totally naked, totally unprotected with her whole melting little tip sticking out into the room, a glowing little fuse pointing straight out into the world. The sky blurred above them, thinner and thinner the closer morning came, with spit and drooping eyelids as butterflies thronged between ears of corn and horses ran in circles out in the paddock as if the hooves striking the ground, the gentle light, were weaving them into the landscape of dreams. Brynhild just sank deeper into the mattress while the light melted between the treetops and spanned the window frame. The thin hours disappeared without her noticing, the blink of an eye, the seconds, no way to keep up with them, the traitorous soft skin, everywhere unresisting. The creek burbled far away, flies bounced off the windowpane. She heard reins snapping somewhere in front of the house as harnesses were tightened under horses’ warm bellies. The days always started like this, all by themselves, sweaty and warm and alone with a sound from the farthest corner of the world. The sound got louder and louder and before she knew it she had to get up and make breakfast and coffee for the masters. Brynhild did it all, so quiet, seventeen, glowing, no one would know what she’d done in the late hours of the night. She wiped down the kitchen counter as fast as she could, gave the floor a quick sweep, put the coffee on, took out cups and plates, set out sausage and eggs, cheese and bread. Her stomach lurched. She was filled with this melting hot world. The dishwater burning hot between her fingers, everything so smooth and scalding on her skin. Seventeen years old with a hot mouth open wide in the middle of the nothingness, seventeen and in a total panic, Brynhild blinked but the colors only pushed deeper into her eyes. Every cell in her body wanted him. There was no doubt about it, happiness and heat filled every crack in her body, Brynhild felt almost drunk as she stood there at the kitchen counter, pulse pounding and rebounding off the walls. She looked out at the pasture. Butterflies flickered just above the ground. She watched them, tracked the wings, tried to count the wing beats but they were fluttering too fast. Time was a heavy pulse behind her eyes. Everything piled up, layer on layer behind her eyes, skinny little legs stabbing right through her irises. It was a mess. Brynhild was seventeen, face-first, open all the way down.
These nights and these mornings, the transitions, the thin blue hours. The sunlight always followed the frame and warmed her face before finding its way to all the small details. Every time she opened her eyes it was just as brutal—the wet panties on the floor, the pale skin alongside her upper arms, his open mouth, the sap trickling from the woodwork. It was grotesque. She lay totally still, this yearning from the depths, a hand on her heart. She didn’t understand where it all came from. All the blurry passings back and forth, this aquatic light every single time. Eternal shimmer in the twilight. Brynhild started to understand, this hard and soft were just two sides of the same coin, the shadows and the longings went hand in hand, she just had to turn the other cheek and stay alert, light a candle when night came. The wet panties on the floor, what was the difference really between them and a burning heart? The flame of the paraffin candle flickered, Brynhild felt it with perfect clarity, her heart beating so hard she could barely breathe, the darkness was exactly the same as the light, just as sinful, just as pure.
The days rose up to meet her with a kind of looming silence. God’s creation, in its entirety, this butter-yellow light, the shadows on the mattress jabbing into her eyes, this dripping life, the inside and outside of a human life sticking to her fingers. She sat up and looked out the window. The wind was pushing the clouds along and shadows slid across the mattress like looming reminders of everything she’d done the night before. Like they were tapping their fingers on the sheets saying Look at this! An encapsulation of all the nights, all the movements that had been forced out of her, she felt the twitching in his body, how he came with his whole self. The new smell clambered into her nostrils, semen and orgasm following the same path as sun and his wide white smile. Straight from the sun. Straight from God. Straight into her eye.
Brynhild waited inside the story and that’s what this was all about. Everything crowding round making it all so difficult, everything coming right up next to everything else, all of that in addition to her and Firstborn and the warm mattress, in addition to his body, light and sky, air and dirt, flame and paraffin. In addition to everything she already had and was. She’d been told so many times that she had to know her place, know where she stood, accept her fate. And yet there really was something pushing Brynhild backward and forward at the same time, and she really did stay as still as she could but something was making its way through her guts and insides, between what she saw and felt and what was part of her skin, stuck on her body, between the glass she drank from and the glass she served everyone else. It was perfectly clear, she saw with her own two eyes everything that came between Firstborn and her, between the visible and the invisible, between rich and poor, between where her skin was thickest and where it was thinnest and soft and smooth and almost everything was too much. It was all jammed into the spaces between, it settled into the hollow of her throat and melted into her skin and turned into a gentle rocking of hips, a quiet movement making it impossible for Brynhild to stand perfectly still no matter how hard she tried.
In church Brynhild felt the warmth from the pew radiating up into her thighs, the butter-yellow light burned in her throat and she prayed as hard as she could every night. She felt it, she saw it in the mirror, the little shadow under her chin when she lowered her head, the space between her hands when she carefully folded them to her chest. She felt it in her face. She had so much to give but it was like her eyes were full now and she couldn’t tell anything apart anymore, the shadows were everywhere and her breath couldn’t find a way out. She carried out her tasks, sloppy, shaking, constantly drying her hands on her apron. She felt only this, all of it gathering in her clasped hands, all of it rocking inside her, the desperate prayers.
Brynhild was a little harp and all her strings were vibrating at once. She brushed her lips with her fingers as often as she could, it would turn out later that her heart-shaped little face would be capable of anything, the force in her spine radiated out into her body. The enormous pressure inside her was too much, she had no chance, everything trying to hold it all back strained with all its might. Everything weighed down on her, got dammed up. Her hair stuck to her skin in lines drawn onto her cheekbones and pale freckles, her beautiful skull, everything vibrated, so clear, so strong, as if rising up to the surface from her insides, as if wanting to show the world its delicate structures. Everything, all that there is in a person’s life. Brynhild’s large blue eyes were sunk in their sockets. She watched every single movement so carefully, she worked so hard at not ending up in a defensive position, not staying alone, but the truth was that her time was running out, both in dreams and in reality.
Seventeen years old, exploding with hormones. A rich man’s sweat and her head all the way down in the pillow. A soft kneeling act. Brynhild embraced it, Brynhild wept, This is all I am, this is all I have, it was a realization that could fill any little human heart with dark stains. Her small face tried its best to hold tight. She tried to think her way through life, reckon up everything that had happened until this point, but everything filled up her eyes and she stood so timidly, milk-white, dawn-red, like a little child, shimmering tears pouring down into her lap like summer rain. She wiped her face dry with her apron but her hands were always ice-cold, always red, always wet, and there was always more dirty laundry to wash.
Brynhild had been given this whole life, she was supposed to manage it all, but she stood there with her chasm and her arms and life’s wild feelings. All of it left up to her. She scrubbed the floors, fetched water from the well, but no matter how many tablecloths she ironed or hens she deboned nothing would ever be the same, the things she’d done went far beyond what someone like her was allowed to do. All this longing, this dripping love-sweat, it stuck to everything she did, these glands in her armpits never stopped stinking. This desire, this big gaping body. How was she supposed to survive it, the pain and the joy, all alive side by side? It fizzed under her tongue and whirled in her chest. These ice-cold hands. Any second now she might lose her grip. She was so scared, so scared of ruining everything. Just the thought that from one moment to the next he might not invite himself in anymore, might not lie down in her bed, might not hold her and kiss her and squeeze her and make her laugh. She’d be all alone, naked, left with a long string of useless moments, and in that case it’d be better if someone did discover and punish them. These nerves, the constant uneasiness, the colors inside her, these ridiculous things inside, instincts and feelings and thoughts like cysts in her body, the huge pictures being painted inside her, they were enormous.
Brynhild was happy, and she cried, this was the paradox she had to live with. Her eyes were like deep lakes in the middle of her face, two light-blue dreams that overflowed and laid down thin stripes on her cheeks. These empty meaningless days, this anguished miserable face, was this the future? Tender feelings escalated in Brynhild, a rising fever-curve, everything she had to endure, everything flowing inside. Shame and intimacy forced its way out of her, always teetering, all the way out on the edge every second. If God wills it, she whispered to herself. This must be God’s love, the darkest kind, the hottest. She had to have faith in it, her breath sat trapped in her chest, a paralyzing silence lurked in every corner of the house.
Brynhild welcomed it all, she always opened the door with a big smile, and everything came right in, lightning-fast. The times when Firstborn put his hands on her throat, lightning shot through her. Get on your knees, he’d said, and she knew it wasn’t about evening prayer. His body was so big, mercy didn’t exist here, her thoughts dripped scarlet fire, when he told her what he wanted to do to her new mazes of plum juice and fruit pulp unfolded. Seventeen and glowing. All the motions so fast they turned invisible. Impossible to keep up with them. Firstborn found his way to a million magical moments in that attic room. The infinity of these moments eddied through her like newborn galaxies. She had no words for it. This simple naked experience, so easily hurt, so smoldering and intense. Expanses of skin, every single morning, the stinking shame, skin endlessly hot, fear tightening its grip around her neck.
Brynhild couldn’t picture any of it without feeling his hand, his big flat palm. Corpse-white, gigantic. And every time Brynhild smiled in the doorway, he might tell her to be quiet even though she wasn’t saying anything, and hold her so tight that it almost hurt, and Brynhild thought every time this can’t go on, but every time it did go on. He let go of her just in time and was nice again and she loved him even more. She ran her fingers over her lips, none of this could stand the light of day, it had all grown too big much too fast, Firstborn kept holding her as the light shrank and went right up to the edge while sweat glistened before her eyes. It was life-threatening. He took her head in his hands, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. He peered into the deep lakes in the middle of her face, Brynhild felt how deep he was sinking, how far he wanted to go, how truly hard she had to work to hold back. Tears ran silently down her cheeks, oh, little Brynhild, what’s wrong? He pulled her close and put his arms around her, holding as hard as he could now that he’d turned so soft.
The sadness in Brynhild moved over to Firstborn, she could see it. There was something in her he couldn’t put into words, something transparent he wanted to get to the bottom of. She saw it with perfect clarity, he wanted to go as deep as he could. This is all I am, this is all I have, she’d said, but Firstborn interrupted her, his pale hand caressed her cheek, she’d really lost control now. Big Little B. She saw everything, there was no doubt about it, this was affectionate, loving, also cold, implacable. But the farther he forced his way into her the more she disappeared, and when he lowered his big body down onto her she vanished completely. Big Little B floated, soared, shining with love, completely gone in the blue hour, in floating soaring nothingness. This was love, this was the purest thing in the world. She was one with creation. She had opened her heart, she was at the pinnacle.
