`The Survivors': the story of three brothers
“The Survivors” by Alex Schulman is the story of three brothers. But first, the author sets the scene of a small cottage and a lake, and a boathouse with grass and forest around it. A police car pulls down the track and a policeman gets out. Three men are sitting on the stone steps. They are badly beaten and crying, wearing suits and ties. This is a long story from long ago experiences.
When he was a boy Benjamin caught tadpoles in his bucket and put them back in the lake before they died. Once he forgot and they were dead in the morning. Mom and Dad sit at the table drinking Vodka and smoking and murmuring to one another. Pierre, the older brother doesn't have anything to do although he could have read his comic books. Niles, the third brother, didn't care that his parents argued as he fell asleep. Dad usually announced a competition for the evening: a swim race to see who was fastest. As they swam toward the faraway shore they feared they couldn't make it. Benjamin told them to stay calm, to take long strokes. They'd help each other, he said. But when they got to shore their parents were gone, inside the house.
Now in the present, they are older and seated on the steps, their mother's ashes in an urn beside them. They get into a fight and almost kill each other when Benjamin realizes they've stopped fighting and are close to each other in knee-deep water, crying. Dad had gone inside to clean the glasses and take a siesta. When they were younger Pierre suggested they go fishing and then fry the fish alive. Benjamin didn't want to but Pierre got the pan and put it on the stove. He found the matches and lit them. The fish flapped in the pan trying to avoid the heat but couldn't get away. Benjamin watched as the fish stuck to the pan, then died. He told Pierre to leave, then cleaned the pan and threw the perch into the trash. When he rubbed his mother's back, he cried but didn't tell her why.
In the middle of the ceremony for mom's ashes, the brothers go to the boathouse and see the old white fiberglass boat where they'd left it, the oars under a tarp. Benjamin rows and Pierre and Nils, on the stern, are wearing black suits and ties to honor their mom. The door of the cottage is open as if mom and dad are about to come out.
Pierre recalls how Nils did nothing to help him when the other kids in the class were piling on top of him. Nils says he doesn't remember that. Benjamin hears a crack and knows something has broken inside Pierre's body when the oar hits him. Author Schulman describes each brother with distinct personalities so we recognize each one clearly.
Dad loves to eat and does so frequently. Mom hates that. After dinner one night Dad takes them into the forest to a special place, with a circle of silver Birch trees. Dad says this is very rare.
They snap off the Birch twigs and gather them up in whisks because Dad says he'll pay five kroner for each whisk. Mom thinks they have cheated for the money and Dad suggests they pick a bouquet of Buttercups for her and leave it by her door. Benjamin and Pierre go back into the forest and pick the flowers but Pierre cries and Benjamin says he'll do it, Pierre should go to his room.
On this day, with Mom's ashes, they go to the sauna and think about the bread box filled with artifacts of their childhoods. They'd buried it by the big tree and decide to find it. Pierre runs to get a shovel. Inside the box is a morning newspaper and an envelope with their childhood fingernails and perfect dried Buttercups. They decide to give them to Mom again.
The pathologist calls and tells Benjamin the cause of Mom's death. Nils had taken photos of her final moments. When Nils shows them Pierre says it was perverse, the same as it was when Dad died. Pierre doesn't want to see them. He holds up three cans of beer and shouts that it's bro time in the sauna.
Once when Benjamin was caught taking a ten Kroner bill from his Mom's wallet he's made to stay in the cellar for hours as punishment. It's dark and smelly and he hates it in there. Later Dad gives him the ten Kroner bill to put in the time capsule. They undress and go to the sauna.
One night they'd gone into the forest and found the power station and tried to peer inside but could only hear the sound of electricity rumbling. Benjamin sees the same trees in every direction and panics and runs in the wrong direction. Pierre follows him and starts to cry but when Benjamin hears the moped of Nils he sees the electric station and finally the cottage and Mom and Dad. Now they see the substation as if it's always been there and always will be. The windows are broken and weeds grow around.
When Dad lost control of the car, Molly, the dog, ran away up the hill and the boys followed her until they ended up at the power station. Benjamin goes inside, flips a switch that lights up the inside. Nils says not to go closer or he'll be seriously injured. He's holding Molly, the dog, one minute then the next she's lying away from him, her body ruined, her skin scorched. He wonders where his brothers are. He sees Mom staring at him from the steps. Pierre tells Benjamin what happened, when he saw Nils running to get help. Mom yells, “What have you done?”
What happens to the brothers after their Mom's funeral? What did they find out about their lives? They'd found her final letter telling them where to bury her, not next to Dad. Find out in this fantastic book by a talented, skillful writer. It's on the new fiction shelf of your local library.