Jim Morrison.
‘Great,’ Seb said. That was all he managed to say. He was lying on the floor bathed in sweat.
The End.
Then I felt the backwash. My lungs were inflated like huge balloons. I waited for the scream. I thought about the corridors in Cecilie’s house, the row of doors, the portraits.
Father, I want to kill you.
Afterwards, when Seb, Gunnar and Ola had left and Mum and Dad had gone to bed, I opened the window and sang into the autumn night. I sang as loud as I could, like the time on the beach, but no one heard me, not Jensenius, not Mum, not Dad, not even Cecilie, although the wind was blowing towards Bygdøy and the night was as still as a cremated oyster.
The day the Barber of Solli was snipping away at the Norwegian championships in Hønefoss, we were sitting in Ola’s house. Winter and exams were on the way and the new Beatles’ single was out. It didn’t set us alight, we tried to get each other worked up, but Sergeant Pepper cast a shadow over the grooves. Didn’t measure up. ‘Hello Goodbye’. Life after Sergeant Pepper was not easy. The B-side was the craziest thing since ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Gunnar gave up. He covered his ears. ‘I Am The Walrus’.
‘Sounds awful,’ he mumbled.
Ola agreed.
‘Listen to the words!’ Seb urged and was already translating the text into Norwegian. ‘Listen! That’s how we dream, isn’t it!’ he said with emphasis.
‘Gotta go,’ Gunnar said. ‘I’m stuck on an equation.’
Ola flicked through his maths book.
We played the A-side again. I thought about Nina, went dizzy for a moment, then thought about Cecilie, couldn’t sink the fishing line, couldn’t get it out either, it was all entangled. She still hadn’t spoken to me. Then I thought about Nina again, and was afraid because now I had forgotten her, forgotten what she looked like however much I tried, I couldn’t visualise her face. It was strange. It was eerie. Then I thought about the dance. The school dance after Christmas where The Public Enemies were going to play.
I was going to break the sound barrier there.
Goodbye.
Hello.
Revolution
’68
My heart was in my mouth, but that was all I had there, I was as sober as a mummy, at least Cecilie would not be able to hold it against me that I had got plastered twice in a row. I stood alone in the gym, the others were in the smoking den in 1D. The student council had dug up a military cop as the doorman. It was war. Couldn’t see Cecilie.
Then the band arrived, The Public Enemies, straight from their caves, they occupied the stage in the corner, wow, they were a different breed from The Snowflakes, they stood up there in the worst clothes I had ever seen, my old jacket from Nesodden was a flash blazer by comparison. They peered around as if they didn’t quite know where they were, the organist knocked a bottle over the keys, the bass player belched into a microphone. Then they stepped up, all of a sudden, all at once, and we were blasted sideways and nailed to the spot, it was wild, what a noise! Seb was already lost to the world, he made his way to the stage and stared at the harmonica player and didn’t move, Guri turned away, piqued, and sat in a corner, Gunnar and Sidsel were dancing, Ola took it easy, after all he had a girl in Trondheim, so no stress there.
And in the chaos, the chaos of dancing, happy, thronging people, in the labyrinths of the wild music, I cleared a way, as if it were a forest, a Norwegian Wood. I had to find Cecilie, but wherever I looked, Cecilie was not there. I bought a Coke and stood drinking, lifeless, powerless. It could not be true that she hadn’t come. I had waited a whole winter, it was a new year, 1968, the Americans had deployed 15,000 more soldiers in Vietnam, Che Guevara was long since dead, The Doors had brought out a new LP, The Forsyte Saga would soon finish, the first person in the world had been given a new heart and had already died, North Vietnam had launched the Tet Offensive, and she hadn’t come.
Slippery Leif tapped me on the head.
‘Karlsen-on-the-roof,’ he said. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
‘My mother’s pickin’ me up at ten,’ I said.
‘Very wise,’ said Slippery Leif. ‘Because the animals on the stage are not on a lead.’ I left. He followed.
‘The committee is meeting in the bog in ten minutes,’ Slippery Leif said. ‘We’ve voted unanimously that the Coke’s too weak.’
He winked three times with his right eye and was gone.
The music wound its way through my auditory canals like rusty barbed wire. ‘Little Red Rooster’. Seb was by the stage staring himself blind. Cecilie was nowhere. I wanted to go to the toilet, but not right now. Guri appeared by my side wanting to dance. We danced. It was nice holding her.
‘Seb’s fun to go out with,’ she said.
‘Seb’s got things to learn tonight,’ I said.
‘You, too,’ she said.
‘Me? How come?’
‘Why don’t you write to Nina?’
My eyes were roving, an over-nervous falcon with its wings in slings. We danced for a while without saying anything, that was for the best, yelling to each other all the time was painful.
‘Why haven’t you answered her letters?’ Guri repeated.
‘I will do,’ I said lamely, and at that moment Cecilie appeared. She was not on her own. She was with Kåre, the editor of the school newspaper, the class above me. I let go of Guri and dragged myself over to the bar to order a Coke with a straw. Might just as well have given the dance a miss. I was finished, it was over and out for Kim Karlsen, Kim’s game where the cards didn’t match, I was washed up, down the drain. Should write to Nina after all, should bloody do that tonight, a long, hungry letter to Nina.
The Public Enemies took a break and slunk off the stage, the room was deafeningly quiet. I escaped before the bar was invaded by the wolves, roosters and hens.
Seb wanted to go home and get his harmonica, but Guri restrained him.
‘Got to use your tongue, lips and hands!’ he panted. ‘Did you hear “Little Red Rooster”! What a blast, eh!’
I was a bit unconcentrated, watching Cecile who was sitting among the editorial staff and being ministered to with laughter and compliments. The editor was standing on a chair, holding a speech, and I had never seen her laugh like that before. Weeping ulcers. My heart fell out of my right sleeve, my body rejected my new heart, I was left holding the bleeding, beating mass in my hand, I was worth nothing.
‘Are you with us?’
Seb snapped his fingers in front of my nose.
‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘My soul has left my body.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Death to materialism.’
Sidsel dashed over, agitated and frightened.
‘Gunnar’s got into a slanging match,’ she gasped.
She pointed to the door. Gunnar was hemmed in by a crowd thronging round him, there was tension in the air.
We cleared a path through them.
‘Bloody commie!’ was the first thing we heard. Some beanpole said that, he spat in disdain over his shoulder as he spoke. ‘Bloody commie!’
Gunnar was onto him.
‘What the hell have the Vietnamese done to you, eh? Have they done anythin’ to you? Have they spread terror in America? Eh? Has a single Vietnamese or Chinese harmed anyone in America?’
The beanpole leaned over Gunnar and flicked his tie in his face.
‘This is a fight between freedom and repression, you prick! Move to Russia if you don’t like it here!’
Gunnar roared with laughter.
‘Russia! Did you hear that? Russia!’
Gunnar continued to laugh at Beanpole.
I don’t know why, but I just lost my temper at the whole shiny band of blue jackets, their polished faces, they were identical, a multi-headed monster.
I thought about the man with the axe who had launched himself at the picture. A picture!
I thought about napalm burning under water.
I thought about the photograph of
the girl crying and the bombed village.
I thought about Cecilie.
‘So you defend bombin’ villages out of existence, do you?’ I said, and I must have said it pretty loudly because everyone turned towards me at once. ‘Eh? Villages of women, children and old people, you defend that, do you?’
‘It’s war,’ said the Beanpole.
I froze.
‘War? Between whom?’
‘Between the free world and communism.’
‘And the free world drops napalm on young children?’
‘It’s war,’ he repeated. ‘We’re defending ourselves!’
‘We! We! Defending! Ourselves!’
Think I shouted.
‘Après nous the b-b-bacteria,’ Ola said behind me, and then The Public Enemies started up again, the floor vibrated and the zoo was open.
Cecilie was dancing with the editor. Cecilie was dancing with the chairman of the student council. I was finished. Wished I could start the propeller and float out of the room. But I wasn’t dreaming of flying any more. Not after Cecilie’s party.
Gunnar came over to me.
‘We got ’em there,’ he grinned.
‘What?’
‘What! Don’t mess about! We had ’em against the wall, man!’
‘Of course, we did,’ I said, and Cecilie danced past without so much as a flicker of the eye or the mouth.
Gunnar went off with Sidsel.
Ola was talking to Guri.
Seb was sitting by the stage, beyond redemption.
I bought a Coke and went to the toilet, met Slippery Leif and Peder on the way.
‘Still on the ground?’ Peder smiled, spreading his breath over me like mustard gas.
‘Lost my propeller,’ I said, retaining the imagery.
‘We’ve got a spare here,’ Slippery Leif whispered, patting his inside pocket.
‘Nothin’ doin’,’ I said and went to the toilet.
Had a smoke in the doorway. The sky was black. There were voices in the dark. It smelt of night.
Stooged down to the cloakroom again. Put down my Coke bottle, went through my duffle coat and found a packet of Teddy.
‘Been to the flea market,’ Peder smiled, pointing to my jacket. Slippery Leif chuckled and straightened his tie.
Ignored them, took my Coke and all of a sudden Cecilie was there. She looked at me for the first time since the party. I was so taken aback that I stuck the bottle in my mouth and took some hurried swigs. Cecilie seemed frightened, then she was dragged into the zoo by the school newspaper editor. Behind me Peder and Slippery Leif were laughing. The music from the gym was doing my head in. I fell forwards and at that moment I knew, I had been duped again, the flames were licking up my throat and the carousel began to turn.
I staggered into the gym, it went round and round and I had to grab support from all sides. I trod as carefully as I could, like a cat, but a sick cat with glass in its paw. Reached the bar and ordered a lemonade, tiptoed back again, past Skinke and into the open air. I put out the fire and inhaled the night, the carousel braked. For a brief instant my head cleared, it was transparent, angry and logical. Then the moon passed into a new phase and I no longer knew where I was and my hands were doing things I didn’t instruct them to do, and my head was a diorama, just as the natural science teacher had talked about, and the shadows were dancing their witches’ frenzy along the walls of my skull and I was unable to read the warnings. Ascended the floors, the empty corridors with hooks on the walls like a desolate slaughterhouse. My footsteps echoed on the stone floors. Far away, beneath me, I heard the music throbbing like a frog’s heart and I danced my solitary dance. I reached the loft, pulled at a door, locked, pulled at another and it opened, a revolting smell hit me. Went in nonetheless, fumbled around the door frame and found the light switch. I almost fell flat on the floor, then laughed. A skeleton was hanging on the wall, the cranium smiling at me. On the shelves were jars of frogs, snakes, pig foetuses preserved in alcohol, must have been the kind of jar I had drunk from. I walked along the shelves feeling nauseous yet calm. Revolting, disgusting, as disgusting as life can be, prepared, eternal life, which Goose longed for, foetuses in alcohol, postage stamps, pressed flowers, Latin names, insects on a windowsill, relics of a hot, boring summer.
Heard the music reverberating through the floors, through this floor, through the floor of my stomach.
Dancing.
No one was going to be a wallflower here! I unhooked the skeleton and carried it under my arm. The bones rattled, its head hung. I carried the skeleton downstairs to the cloakroom, someone screamed, girls clung to the boys, the boys laughed, Slippery Leif and Peder clapped. I got past the military guards. There was an uproar. I danced. With the skeleton in my arms. I wanna be your man. Then it was over. Over for me. They came at me from all sides. Skinke. Kerr’s Pink. Sphinx. The doormen, the MPs. I didn’t see Cecilie. Everything went so fast.
Remember they talked a lot, then I was given my duffle coat and discharged into the night. It was dark and silent. Snow. Fresh snow. It was eerie. You could tiptoe over it, you wouldn’t be heard, but you left footprints. Footprints.
The music behind me faded.
I threw up under a street lamp.
I staggered along. Then I heard someone. I have ears like a bat.
‘Kim,’ a voice said.
I stopped.
Someone came closer.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I saw what happened,’ the voice said.
It was Cecilie.
She was wearing mittens.
‘It was a lousy trick,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t nice to the skeleton.’
Cecilie came closer.
She had wound her blue scarf three times round her neck.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said calmly. ‘They poured alcohol into your Coke bottle. I saw them.’
I said nothing.
She had followed me. She had left the dance.
‘I tried to stop them, but Kåre wouldn’t let me.’
‘The editor,’ I said.
‘He’s stuck up,’ Cecilie said. ‘They’re all stuck up.’
‘I was chucked out,’ I said, as though that was anything to worry about now. I almost toppled over, banged into a wall.
‘I’ll take you home,’ said Cecilie.
She took me home.
And in Svoldergate she kissed me, even though my mouth must have stunk of guts and vomit.
I think the moon came out.
Then she walked on alone.
That was how we got together, Cecilie and I.
On Monday I was standing on the carpet in the headmaster’s office, legs apart, hands behind my back. It smelt of tobacco in there, a musty pipe. On the wall there were pictures of all the headmasters before Sandpaper, they looked the same. I couldn’t quite take my eyes off the moustache under Sandpaper’s nose, it was like a hedgehog’s spine. He was sitting behind a large table on which lay papers, pencils and files lined up in rows. He observed me for a long time, much too long, then the dry, gravelly voice issued forth from under his moustache:
‘This is serious,’ he said.
I heard.
He stood up, walked around me, stopped behind me, stayed there. I stared at his empty chair. I wondered what he would have said if I had sat in it.
Sandpaper said, ‘Kim Karlsen, you were drunk. You broke into the natural science lab.’
I listened.
His breath against the back of my neck. The empty chair. The fear that would come too late.
‘Have you anything to say for yourself?’
‘No,’ I said.
It went quiet behind me, then he re-appeared in his chair, looked at me with a grey expression and I instantly felt I had not been completely condemned, there was something conciliatory about the way he raised his hand.
‘Good,’ he said, straightening a piece of paper. ‘You definitely will not be allowed to take part
in any future excursions.’
He flicked through a few papers, taking his time. I heard the clack-clack-clack of a typewriter outside. People were walking to keep warm in the playground.
Sandpaper peered up.
‘I could suspend you from school for two weeks,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to.’
Contrary to appearances, a heart of gold. Basically decent. The moustache is deceptive.
‘You will be banned from watching the Olympics for two weeks,’ Sandpaper said.
I smiled. I was almost beginning to like him. I think I did like him a little.
‘I’m not interested in sport,’ I said.
‘But I have written a letter to your parents,’ he said.
I started disliking him again.
Sandpaper pointed to the door. I responded.
‘I don’t want any more trouble or misconduct from you,’ he said, seated in his chair. ‘Is that understood?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said.
‘Are you aware of the gravity of this?’
‘Yes, I am,’ I said.
I pressed the door handle. My hand was shiny with sweat.
‘Is that the only jacket you have to wear?’ he asked.
Now I didn’t like him at all. Or I felt sorry for him. In his grey suit, with the grey tie, the grey moustache. He was an object of ridicule.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I like this one best. I inherited it from my great-grandfather.’
I thought I should tell him about the rock, but I refrained.
Sandpaper began a new sentence, but didn’t complete it.
‘We would like to keep our school…’
He broke off with a sudden hand movement.