‘Spanish?’
‘Lots more people speak Spanish than German. All seamen do. And there’s South America.’
Ola sat down on his rucksack.
‘How… how d’you think I’ll get on with d-d-drummin’ now? D’you think I’ll be able to play the d-d-drums again?’
‘Course,’ Seb said. ‘Why wouldn’t you be able to?’
‘Wondered if my arms would be too w-w-weak.’
‘Charlie Watts broke his arm ice skatin’,’ Gunnar interposed.
‘Did Charlie Watts break his arm?!’ Ola whispered, standing up with difficulty.
Gunnar nodded.
‘Ice skatin’?’ Seb asked.
‘Yeah, fell flat on his face. Twisted his arm as he fell.’
Gunnar was flushed, tired.
‘They don’t have ice skatin’ in England, do they?’
Gunnar looked to me, he was snookered.
‘Yes, they do,’ I said. ‘London has a great ice hockey team.’
‘And he was ok-k-kay?’
‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it,’ Gunnar crowed.
‘But he only b-b-broke one arm!’
Gunnar was on sinking ground again, sent me a look, but found his way out alone.
‘Better to break both arms,’ he said quickly, his face hot and red. ‘Then it’s easier to keep the rhythm afterwards!’
That quietened Ola down. And then we didn’t say much for a while. The sun crept back behind a cloud, the fjord darkened, a cigarette did the rounds, a lukewarm Kent Seb had snaffled from his mother.
‘This year I’ll do home work,’ he said. ‘Dead cert.’
‘Same here,’ Gunnar said.
‘Same here,’ I said.
‘Have to be off,’ Ola said, his face pinched, legs wobbly.
‘What about goin’ to the Matthiessen buildin’?’ Seb suggested.
‘Have to go,’ Ola repeated, skipping from one foot to the other.
We all watched him.
‘Need a piss,’ Ola said.
‘Can’t you just…?’ Gunnar started to say, then stopped.
We looked at each other.
‘Let’s go,’ Gunnar said.
And so we sauntered off towards the centre with the sun on our backs, dragging our rucksacks behind us.
Gymnastics was indoors next day because the rain was pouring down. We were sitting in the sweaty changing room. Skinke peered down at us, flexing his abdominal muscles. All of a sudden he roared in an uncommonly high voice:
‘Remember! You can fail gymnastics! Do you hear? You can fail gymnastics.’
In Indian file we ran into the gymnasium. Skinke directed us into a variety of formations and when he had us where he wanted us, he thundered in his reedy voice:
‘And let’s get one thing straight. Warm-ups! Warm-ups are the basis of all great performances! Warm-ups are the reverse side of the gold medal!’
He came to an abrupt halt, put a hand to his head, his magnified eyes behind his glasses roaming like planets off orbit. We exchanged looks and some boys put a finger to their temples and stuck out their tongues.
‘Now let’s run!’ he shouted, and we ran, round and round, with Skinke in the middle, as if we were a wheel and he an unlubricated hub.
At last he stopped us, ordered us to the wall-bars where we dangled for a few minutes. Then he pulled the biggest vaulting horse onto the floor, positioned the mat and springboard, pointed to us and said:
‘Now let’s try a somersault, shall we!’
A groan ran through the acrobats. Skinke came towards us, removed his glasses and flexed his thighs.
‘I’ll show you first! Watch!’
His feet stormed down, smashed onto the springboard, he swung over the horse in an elegant arc and landed softly on the mat. Then he turned just as quickly and beamed at us:
‘That’s how to do it, boys! Now it’s your turn.’
There was a sort of line. Everyone wanted to be at the back, the bell would ring soon. And in an instant I found myself at the front. I breathed in and ran as fast as I could. I completely forgot where I was, it was like running through a sweat-filled dream, I landed on the springboard with an enormous bang, launched myself at the brown beast, swung myself upwards and pushed off with everything I had, I shot out into space like an astronaut, and straight afterwards, or at the same time, there I was, standing like a fence post on the mat with Skinke shouting in my ear:
‘Good! Good lad! What’s your name?’
‘Kim,’ I whispered.
‘Good! That was good, Kim.’
Now it was Gunnar’s turn. He ran in great bounds across the floor, swung himself over the horse, but failed to get enough air under his legs. He dragged Skinke down with him in the fall. They both lay on the mat, gasping for breath.
‘You have to work on height!’ Skinke shouted. ‘On height! Otherwise it was fine.’
Then they came one by one, all the boys I have forgotten, who have forgotten me: Frode, round-shouldered and fat, landed astride the horse with a hideous scream. Ottar bounded over the horse but seemed to capitulate in mid-flight and performed a belly-landing. Rune, who rolled his ‘r’s because he came from Ris, managed to land on his back on the horse and slide down onto the floor. But then there was a pause. No one moved. It was Fred Hansen’s turn.
‘Come on!’ Skinke shouted.
Fred Hansen did not come on. He stood down the other end, a wan matchstick in huge shorts. Everything he wore was huge, he must have had a huge brother from whom he inherited all his clothes. Now he was at the front of the queue and luminescent.
‘Get a move on!’ Skinke yelled.
Fred Hansen stood with his hands down by his side, hollowbacked and a little knock-kneed, his bony legs banging against each other.
‘He won’t make it,’ Gunnar whispered. ‘He’s scared out of his wits.’
Light thunder on the floor. Fred Hansen was on his way, stifflegged, his elbows at right angles.
‘Good! That’s good!’ Skinke encouraged.
Fred Hansen dived towards the horse, pushed himself off, looking like an emaciated gull over a shoal of herrings as for a second he hung gangly-limbed in space, then landed on his back with a bang, off the mat.
The silence came just as abruptly. Fred Hansen lay without stirring, his eyes glued shut. He was smaller than ever, and whiter, he seemed ethereal where he lay, like a fallen angel in shorts much too big for him. Skinke knelt beside him, fumbling around, searching for a pulse, he found nothing, looked up at us standing round them in a circle, heads craned.
‘What’s his name?’ Skinke whispered.
‘Fred,’ someone said.
Skinke pressed the palms of his hands down on Fred’s heart and opened his eyelids, but Fred was just staring into space, white-eyed and vacant.
‘Fred,’ Skinke essayed. ‘Fred, can you hear me?’
Not a sound.
‘He’s dead,’ a voice mumbled.
Then Skinke began to scream, he screamed as he shook the lifeless body.
‘Fred! Fred! Fred!’
It didn’t help. Skinke ploughed a path through us to go for a doctor.
Then Fred smiled, his lips curled on his thin, pale face and he stood up, this was how it must have been when Jesus awoke on the third day, and he crossed the floor as though weightless. Skinke had stopped in the doorway and, scared out of his wits, was staring at Fred as he approached with long, rolling strides. At that moment the bell rang, it resounded through the gym and the atmosphere was pretty eerie and solemn.
In the changing rooms Fred Hansen threw up and was driven home in a taxi, suffering from concussion. He was absent for ten days, and on his return was even smaller than before, his clothes a tent erected around him, and he said nothing, just sat by the wall looking nowhere in particular, faraway Fred Hansen.
Ola and Seb were waiting by the fountain. It was the lunch break and the rain had eased. Ola’s arms were covered in names and greetings and drawings,
all the girls in the classes had etched something, too. Obviously breaking your arms wasn’t the worst thing that could happen after all. Ola had perked up, was excused written work and never tested in class. In fact he was dreading having to go to casualty and have the plaster taken off in a month’s time.
‘Have you had gym?’ he called as we came closer.
‘Yup.’
We told him about Fred Hansen. Could easily have broken his neck. Just a fluke he survived.
‘The gym teacher’s n-n-nuts,’ Ola said. ‘Thought I’d be let off, I did. Then I had to do seventy knee bends!’
‘Have we got enough money for a cake?’ Seb wondered.
We ransacked our pockets. Lean pickings every time. It was always me who had the least dough. All I had was twenty-five øre from the deposit on a bottle I had taken back the day before. Gunnar earned money working at the grocery shop. Seb was always sent money by his father. Ola and I were the worst off. But now his pocket money had been doubled after breaking his arms, and he was not expecting his wage to go down once he had recovered. At least he wouldn’t have to empty a bloody dustbin again. And I was given ten kroner a week, which was enough for a copy of Poprevyen and a cinema ticket.
I put the twenty-five øre in the pot. Seb counted up.
‘A cake and a Coke it is. And a toffee for Kim,’ he grinned.
Behind us something was happening, by the gate to Skovveien. There was shouting and people were flocking around a big crowd.
‘Punch-up!’ Gunnar said.
We charged down there. It wasn’t a punch-up. A few gymnas students were holding a huge American flag in the air, and they had another one too, yellow with red stripes. They were shouting: ‘Bomb Hanoi! Bomb Hanoi!’
‘Hanoi’s the capital of north Vietnam,’ Gunnar whispered. ‘My brother said America has landed 200,000 soldiers in Vietnam.’
The shouts became louder and louder, people were stamping and clapping. I thought about napalm, about napalm burning under water. I thought about the photograph in the summer. I thought about the man with the axe.
‘Down with communism! Down with communism! Kill the communists!’
There was a smell of blood in the air. They meant what they said. They wanted to kill. The smell was of blood, blood and aftershave.
‘We’re off,’ Seb said. ‘The bell will go any minute.’
We edged past the crowd and raced down Skovveien to the bakery. But it was nigh on impossible to make any progress. Everyone came running towards us to see what was going on by the gate. We had to find a path through, fight our way, almost fighting with those who wanted us to turn round.
It didn’t help to have a bank book with 400 kroner when I wasn’t allowed to take it out until I came of age. After three tough evenings I took the plunge, got hold of a large cardboard box from Jacobsen Kolonial, strapped it onto the luggage carrier and cycled down to the flower shop in Drammensveien close by the Russian embassy.
Did they need a delivery boy?
‘Might do,’ twittered the owner, a thin elderly lady in a flowery dress.
That was how I became a delivery boy, cycling round the town with a box full of bundles, a krone for every one I delivered. I earned about twenty kroner a week and fru Eng made tea for me and fed me Marie biscuits. I said nothing about this to the others. I just said that I had started doing my homework before dinner. What was more, I lied, the caretaker was ill, he was wheezing away in a respirator at Rikshospitalet, so I had to wash the steps and sweep the pavement. Because I did not want Gunnar, Seb or Ola to see me pedalling round the streets with a cardboard box full of flowers. No fear.
So I raced home after school, wheeled out the bouquet express and delivered roses, carnations and tulips to all of Oslo. And it was a pretty good job, for everyone was happy to see me come and I was even given tips sometimes. A woman wearing just a nightdress in the middle of the day and stinking of smoke and beer gave me five kroner and asked me if I wanted to come in and have a fizzy drink.
But I didn’t.
Regretted saying that afterwards.
One Friday in the lunch break, with driving rain and the wind from the north, Seb and Ola came bounding over to the shed where Gunnar and I were mugging up on geography. Something seemed to be exciting them, both were giving me sly looks, and then Ola said:
‘Nina’s got your name on h-h-her hand.’
What was that Ola said?
‘What did you say?’ I said in a thick voice.
‘Nina’s g-g-got your name written on h-h-her hand!’ Ola repeated, bouncing up and down.
‘On her hand?’
‘On her hand, and you know what that means!’ Seb grinned. He pointed to the back of his hand. ‘There. With a big red pen!’
‘Really,’ I said, trying to read my geography book, but the letters wouldn’t stay still, I couldn’t have located Africa on the map if I had been asked.
I took the short cut home that day, flung down my rucksack and raced over to the flower shop. There I was given tea and Marie biscuits, and the tea tasted different from the tea at home, smelt different too, of foreign countries and adventure, a thousand and one nights and China. Fru Eng dipped the dry biscuit into the sweet tea and quietly smacked her lips. Afterwards she smoked a long cigarette, and she used a holder with a shiny black mouthpiece.
‘I don’t think there’s anything for you to do today,’ she said.
I counted the slips of paper I had collected and handed them over. There were twenty-eight in all, not a bad week all things considered.
She took three ten-krone notes from a pocket in her skirt, two kroner too many.
‘Since you’re so fast and so nice,’ she said, patting me on the head. I looked at the notes. This was big money. You could buy a lot with it.
Fru Eng started tidying up the newspapers and the stalks. I didn’t move. My clothes were dripping wet. Fru Eng gave the potted plants a good watering and snipped off any brown leaves. It was steaming like a jungle in the cramped back room.
‘Are you still here?’ she said, with her back to me.
I was thinking about Nina, about the flower Nina had given me that time.
‘What sort of flower is a poppy?’ I asked.
‘It’s a rare flower in Norway,’ fru Eng said, turning to me. ‘And dangerous. Many poppies are poisonous.’ She sent me a strange smile. ‘Poisonous and beautiful.’
‘I think I’ll ask her out to the cinema.’ It tumbled out of me.
‘You do that,’ fru Eng said, going back into the jungle.
The following morning I got up at the crack of dawn, hadn’t slept much in the night and was wide awake and tired. At first I wondered whether I should stay at home, feign a heavy cold and stick my forehead under the lampshade. Nope. The others would kill themselves laughing. It was now or never. I crept out into the corridor and found the Aftenposten, skimmed through the cinema ads. There were a lot I would have liked to see. The Dolls with Gina Lollobrigida, Loving Couples with Ann-Margret. Or The Knack. It was no good. I would be stopped before I took my hand out of my pocket. The hand. My stomach tied itself in knots like an abandoned gym bag. Perhaps Seb and Ola had gone bog-eyed. Perhaps it was just a note to remind herself to buy something. Or the name of a band. Kinks. Buggered if I was going to fall for that. Would have to see it with my own eyes first. See my name on her hand. But what if she had washed it off? She must have washed her hands! I continued going through the cinema ads. Donald Duck in the Wild West. I was out of my nappies. Mary Poppins at the Colosseum. I wasn’t completely brainless. What was on in Frogner? Zorba the Greek. Zorba, I said in a resonant voice, almost tickling myself inside. For adults, but the doorman in Frogner was quite short-sighted. If I combed my hair and stood on tiptoes. Zorba. It sounded good.
‘You’ll be late!’ Mum said from behind me. ‘It’s gone half past seven!’
But I made it on time. We had Norwegian in the first lesson. Kerr’s Pink was as frisky as a colt, read from Nordlands Trompet
and talked about its author, Petter Dass, while we lay snoring on our desks.
I skulked around the playground on my own in the break. I didn’t see Nina. I was beginning to feel relieved. She might have been ill, off school. But there she was in the last break, by the drinking fountain. I strolled over, my insides hollow and my shoes weighing several hundred kilos. I bent down over the jet of water and squinted up at her with my left eye. And I saw her stealing a glance at me, and I suppose she saw me stealing a glance at her, too. I got water all over my face. My name was on her hand. In red letters.
The last lesson dragged, worse than ever before. It was religion with Steiner, St. for short, and he spent three quarters of an hour explaining why Jesus was so angry with the bush that didn’t bear fruit, even though it was the middle of winter. At the end he wanted us to sing those insane songs whose texts we never understood. Jesus, Your Sweet Fellowship To Taste. But the bell rang and I charged down the stairs, reckless and rich.
I saw Nina in Colbjørnsgate. She was walking home, lived in Tidemandsgate. I followed her for five blocks, did not play so tough this time, was about to give up and escape into a gateway. But she turned round suddenly as if she knew I was there and stood stock still, waiting.
‘Hello,’ she said when I caught her up and walked alongside her.
I glanced down at her hand. It was in her pocket. After all, I might have misread. The best route was straight down Løvenskioldsgate, but my legs had different ideas. They were following her, past the fountain, soon we would be where she lived.
‘Don’t you live in Skillebekk?’ Nina asked.
‘Ye-es.’
She looked at me and smiled.
‘Where are you going now then?’
Caught in the act. Exposed and flattened.
‘To my uncle’s,’ I said quickly. ‘In Marienlyst.’
Tidemandsgate. Tide and time wait for no man. We stopped at the corner.
‘Bloody cold,’ I said.
‘I like winter better than autumn,’ Nina said.
‘Have you got the Saint in religion, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like to come with me to the cinema this evening?’