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The truth is, he never would have figured it out on his own. To him, reasons and motives behind emotions weren’t worth dwelling on or thinking about. What mattered was what actually happened and how one felt immediately as a result, and those around him played along with that notion, most of the time. But they knew, his brother especially, that one’s immediate reaction to something doesn’t necessarily have solely to do with that one specific event. Sometimes there’s a much bigger problem to be addressed.
The Big in Kyrgyzstan project was hard for both of them. They’d never done anything quite like it, and they weren’t even completely sure what they wanted to come out of it, aside from a few good laughs for their audience in their talk show. They both seemed to be constantly needing to weigh the merits of making an intentionally bad product for a good laugh, against their professional sensibilities and wanting to make something of good quality. They’d only given themselves ten days for the project, and still things seemed to be moving faster than they’d anticipated. They had recorded their song, Janym, within two days of arriving in Bishkek, in a language they didn’t understand and a style they weren’t used to. The recording wasn’t strictly up to their standards and neither was the music video they filmed. This was problematic enough, but every single time afterwards they were expected to perform it live, forcing them to use a lyrics note, which they considered to be extremely unprofessional.
The days were hectic, control was little, and Vegard’s temper was shorter than it had been in a long time. The less sleep they got, the less capable he seemed to be even to fake enjoyment and easygoing. Whenever the camera wasn’t looking, he would snap at Bård over anything at all.
“This is so fucking stupid, I can’t believe you talked me into this…” Vegard grumbled through his teeth while he made a left turn on the road, after they’d met Iliya to hang posters advertising their performance in a pizza place all over town. While they were at it, he’d gotten a phone call that they could get a gig performing at a wedding that had already started, so they were now rushing back to the hotel to get into more presentable clothes.
“He is right, though. Where were you expecting to perform, Oslo Spektrum?” Bård replied, still looking over the pile of posters in his lap, “This is fine, really.”
“I hate this! I hate being out of control like this, with him doing whatever he wants and we fucking find out as we go along. I can’t remember all the words yet, and now we’re going to crash a fucking wedding... This is exactly the kind of crap we try to avoid back home..” Vegard was strangling the wheel in his fists as he spoke. Bård recognized a rant coming on and cut him off.
“Yes, but we’re not home, we’re in Bishkek, and we don’t know how things work here. We leave in a few days and our best shot at whatever the hell it is we’re doing is to go along with Iliya. We agreed that this is what we’re going to do, we would have gotten nowhere without him.”
“You call this getting somewhere?”
“Yes, it’s getting somewhere! We’re performing, aren’t we? We’re getting interviews, aren’t we? Look, just focus on getting from point A to point B. Right now, that’ll be not crashing the car on the way to the hotel.”
Vegard’s response was barely even audible when he said under his breath, “Shut the fuck up, I’ve never crashed a car in my life, unlike some people I know..”
Bård had offered to get ready in the same room so that they could plan more and help each other do things faster, but Vegard insisted that he couldn’t do both at once and that he would be much faster on his own, slamming the door to his hotel room without so much as a “see you later”. He found him waiting out in the hall dressed his black suit, his eyes closed and his head dropped, mouthing the words to Janym over and over soundlessly.
“Did you bring the guitar?” He asked without opening his eyes when he felt Bård near him.
“Right here. Do you have a spare tie? I forgot to pack one.” Bård asked, noting the black tie dangling from his brother's neck.
“No, I don’t have another one.” Vegard said, finally opening his eyes.
“Maybe I should ask the front desk if they have any to spare. Do you think it’ll look weird..?” But before he could finish, Vegard yanked his own tie off and stuffed it aggressively in his pants pocket.
“Come on, we’ll be late.”
Their performance at the wedding was as awkward as it could have been. The only upside was that it was over within a few minutes, and attention was quickly diverted from them on to the next event of the evening. They were invited to stay as guests, and they soon found seats at one of the tables. Bård took in the beautiful hall they were in. He noticed how people were dressed and their body language as they gave congratulations to the bride and groom sitting at the raised table higher than the rest. They looked very happy, he thought. Perhaps they’d succeeded in being a quirky little addition to their wedding, instead of ruining it as Vegard so feared. It didn’t really matter to him how many of the words they mispronounced, or how silly and out of place they looked doing it. Perhaps it was better that way, all the guests could later have a laugh at that ridiculous thing that happened at their wedding, and definitely not something standard that happened to everyone.
The happy couple were soon invited to do the traditional wedding waltz. The bride was beautiful, the groom was positively giddy, and they were quite a sight alone on the dance floor, amid an impressive laser light and pyrotechnics show. Bård was always such a sucker for pyrotechnics, and so was Vegard, he knew. But he did not expect to turn and find tears running down his older brother's face.
"What's the matter with you?" He asked, maintaining the smile on his face, but whispering so that no one else could hear.
Vegard forced a smile too and said quietly, wiping his eyes, "I hate you so much right now."
That stung. But they were professionals, and no matter what happened he knew he could rely on Vegard to do what he said next.
"Right.. Let's just pretend you got emotional over the adorable couple and we'll talk about it later."
Bård got up without waiting for an answer and moved to another seat at the table, putting Iliya between them. They spent the rest of the wedding apart and only met on their way outside a couple of hours later. Perhaps it was thanks to them staying relatively apart and getting immersed in the celebration itself, that Vegard had regained his composure and kept a civil demeanor when it was time for them to recap the experience in the parking lot.
“Wow! That was intense.” He said, looking around himself in bewilderment.
“What the hell happened right now?” Bård played along with the vibe of disbelief. It wasn’t lying, it was indeed incredible for both of them, what they’d just been through, but it wasn’t exactly telling the whole truth of it either.
“Did we just entertain at a Kyrgyz wedding?”
“I think so!” Bård nodded and began to laugh.
“I think so too!” Vegard repeated after him.
“It is the most insane thing I have done in my life.”
“Probably me too.”
“Yeah..”
A kind of awkward silence followed where the two brothers avoided eye contact with each other, until one of the production managers, off camera, made a suggestion.
“Vegard, can you say something about your emotional moment back in there?”
“Oh, okay. Uh… You know what? I started to cry when they danced. I was not prepared, and then suddenly the tears came!”
“It was only three minutes after we had left the car!” Bård interjected.
“It was so beautiful with the lasers..”
“the lasers and the pyro-show.”
“..and when they danced to that ballad with laser beams, then I just broke down.”
They both raved away about it for another 30 seconds until finally Vegard said, “alright, that should be enough. I think we should get out of here.”
“Alright, let’s just tie it up then. Like we’re ticking off a to-do list. Ready?”
Vegard was already looking around, feeling awkward again as he went back to realizing they stuck out like two Norwegian sore thumbs in their environment, “Yeah, you do the lead up.”
Bård turned to the camera and said, “Play at a wedding in Kyrgyzstan…”
“Check!” They both said together and that was it for the night.
They parted ways with the camera crew and turned together into the corridor leading to their adjacent rooms. Vegard was quiet, but not hostile anymore. Perhaps he would be receptive to a good talk.
“Can I come in for a minute?” Bård asked, just as Vegard opened the door to his own room.
“No..” was Vegard’s initial response, but looking at Bård’s face he soon chose to add, “What for?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“About the interviews tomorrow? I really want to sleep..”
“Not the interviews, I want to talk about you.”
“No, come on. Get out of my face.” Vegard groaned and tried to shut the door but Bård stopped it with a firm hand.
“We can have it out here in the hallway, if you like, but I’m sure you’d prefer some privacy.”
Vegard rolled his eyes and turned away into the waiting hotel room, leaving Bård to close the door behind him once he was inside.
“I’m fine. It’s just a couple more days, I can get through it if you just let me get some sleep.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it with how much crap you’re giving me! You said you hate me? What on earth did I do to deserve that?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it..” Vegard shook his head dismissively, but he was pacing the room like an agitated tiger in a cage. Bård knew that if he kept at it long enough he’d lash out.
“You could have fooled me! What’s your problem anyway? You’ve been a pissy little bitch ever since we got here..”
“I’m just tired!”
“Don’t give me that, I’ve seen you more tired than this and still grinning from ear to ear. What’s different? What’s wrong?”
“Well, I have to worry about everything, don’t I?” Vegard shouted all of a sudden.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s alright for you and your ‘happy-go-lucky’ attitude! Because you’ve got me to carry most of the vocals, make sure we have everything we need every day, think about what a huge mistake this probably is with this shit song and it's shit video and these fucking embarrassing performances on TV, at the park, at a fucking wedding.. Bård, I guarantee you, if anyone had pulled a stunt like this at either of our weddings, we’d flip our shit. I know I would.” Vegard’s voice cracked here and there from overuse, having sung a song that didn’t quite sit comfortably in his vocal range for the past week. It made him sound like he was on the verge of tears again, but Bård knew better.
“You’re overreacting.”
“Am I?”
“You wouldn’t even let me help if I tried. I offered to get prepare for the wedding together, you said no..”
“It would have been slower, we had no time.”
“I’ve offered to drive several times, you wouldn’t have it..”
“I can’t let you drive, it’s too dangerous.”
“I suppose I should be grateful you let me carry the guitar around sometimes!”
Vegard opened his mouth but had no real response to that one. They were like mirror images of each other, standing on either side of the room with their hands on their hips.
“You’d kill yourself before you let anyone help you out. You think you need to do everything, worry about everything, because if you don’t do it, no one will. You won’t even recognize everything that Iliya’s done for us just because you’re such a control freak you’re too mad that you couldn’t do it yourself. You have to learn to let go a little, Vegard, before you give yourself a heart attack.”
Vegard seemed to be taking in his words for a moment, but he soon came to his conclusion, “I don’t know how to do that. Nothing has ever proven to me that I can have that luxury.”
Bård thought quickly. He was surprised at how fast the answer came to him.
“Give me a minute.” he said, and walked out of the room.
Vegard stood alone by the single bed, with nothing but the echos of their argument for company. He had heard what Bård said, and perhaps even accepted it as truth, but how would that help him now? He almost felt as if Bård had deserted him in the middle of something, like he was halfway across a lake in a small row boat and Bård had just buggered off with the oars, leaving him stranded with no means of moving forward or back.
But soon he was back. His phone was in his hand and he looked around the room before his eyes found Vegard once more.
“You’ll be getting a call in a few minutes.” He said cryptically.
“From whom?”
“Look, there is very solid proof that you don’t have to be as in control as you think. But I don’t think you’ll really take it from me. So I called her, and was, frankly, a bit surprised to hear that you’d only called her yourself once during this whole trip. I call Maria every night, you know. I don’t know how you’ve lasted this long.”
“I.. what?” Vegard was still trying to piece together what his brother was saying when his phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and felt a stab of emotion when he saw her name on the screen.
‘ Helene ’
He swiped the screen and answered, staring at Bård, who just waved the hand that held his phone and mouthed “good night”, before turning around and leaving the room again.
--
The next morning they had an interview with one of the biggest radio shows in Kyrgyzstan. Vegard was practically a different person. He was friendlier and more enthusiastic than he’d been the entire time they were there. And as if his new found energy was radiating all around them, things were finally beginning to go their way. They’d gotten amazing feedback from listeners all over the country, asking when the concert was and telling them how much they loved them and the song. Even the one dry interview they’d had with the city’s most passive journalist couldn’t bring down their spirits and they went on high into their concert that night, which in itself was a surprisingly big success.
Bård never knew, nor did he ask, exactly what Helene said to Vegard that night. There was only one thing he knew that was and would always be relevant:
Brilliant and ‘famous’ men they may be, but without their wives, they would each have tumbled down like a house of cards.